From the Ashes
by Malarkay
Summary: He had built his Empire to withstand the test of time, but when tragedy strikes Cyclonia, it finds itself vulnerable to enemies from within, as well as without. Now the question is, can it survive to see a strong ruler rise to restore it to glory?
1. The Heir Apparent

Disclaimer: Storm Hawks belongs to Asaph Fipke and Nerd Corps Entertainment. I am not them. I am not making any money from this, and no animals were harmed in the making of this story.

Author's Note: This is a prequel to the series, born of my love of all things Cyclonian. Fair warning: This story reads more like a series of related vignettes than a cohesive narrative.

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The Cyclonian Empire was crumbling.

He had achieved more than any previous ruler of Cyclonia ever had. He had united Atmos under his banner, and had ruled for many years, despite constant resistance and rebellion from some of the conquered terras. And when age began to take its toll, he had passed the mantle of Master Cyclonis onto his son. Cyclonia must never show weakness to the world.

But the younger Master Cyclonis had been headstrong and brash. Too often he saw fit to disregard his advisors, his father included. Too often he would take matters into his own hands, riding out to meet his enemies sword to sword. It had cost him his life. The Sky Knight of the rebel Storm Hawks squadron defeated him, his Switchblade Elite was destroyed, his parachute ripped apart in a foolish attempt to retaliate.

Enraged, Tanager sent the Dark Ace to avenge the death of his son. Fiercely loyal, ruthless, and remarkably talented for one so young, the Dark Ace did not disappoint. He did not return to Terra Cyclonia until he had single-handedly massacred the entire squadron. But their victory was a hollow one. Urged on by the death of Master Cyclonis, and the so-called martyring of the Storm Hawks, the rebellion gained ground, slowly but surely chipping away at the Cyclonian hold on many of the outer terras.

That damage may have been contained, the Empire saved, if not for what happened within the heart of Cyclonia itself. For every victory the rebels celebrated, discord and treachery within his "loyal" ranks followed. Cyclonia must be strong, and many who sought the title of Master Cyclonis for themselves saw nothing but weakness within the current Imperial family: a doddering old man, and a child.

The first assassination attempt, orchestrated by one of his oldest supporters, made Tanager reevaluate his priorities. He withdrew his Talon forces from many of the outlying terras, fortifying his hold on the core. The Empire could be rebuilt after the rise of a new Master Cyclonis. He knew it would take years before that time would come to pass, knew that he likely would not be around to see it, but he was determined that his own blood continue his work. He would not allow Cyclonia to be picked apart by vultures.

He sent a guard to summon his granddaughter to the throne room.

He was not kept waiting long. The child, no more than five, entered, looking up at him with more than a little awe and trepidation. "Lark," he greeted her. His voice was deep, almost inhuman. He had dabbled in more than his share of darkness during his rise to power. He crooked a finger, beckoning her closer. Looking into her violet eyes, he vowed not to make the same mistakes with her as he did with her father. She would be the ruler his son had possessed too many failings to become.

"It is past time we began your education."


	2. Lesson the First

"It is past time we began your education."

"Ms. Avocet has already been teaching me," Lark piped up, and Tanager raised a hand, cutting her off.

"Yes, and she will continue on as your tutor, but there will be others. You are the heir apparent, now. Your studies shall become far more vigorous. I expect you to learn a great many things before you ascend my throne."

"Like what?"

"Such as how to defend yourself. You will find that many people in life will wish you harm. Some already do."

"That's what they're for," Lark reasoned, motioning toward the two Talon guards who flanked the massive doorway.

Tanager's gaunt face remained stern, his voice neither amused nor indulgent as he spoke, "And if they should fail, you would stand there like a gleep, waiting to be slaughtered?" Lark stared up at her grandfather, not knowing what to say. Finally, she shook her head, and he continued. "Then you will learn. You must be prepared to be your own last line of defense."

"Will you teach me?"

Tanager laughed, shaking his head. "I have what is left of the Empire to rule. No, that privilege will go to another." He beckoned, and Dark Ace materialized from the shadows he had been watching from. "You will see to it that my granddaughter receives proper training in the art of warfare."

"It will be an honor, Master Cyclonis," Dark Ace replied, with a respectful bow.

"Beginning immediately," Tanager ordered, and Dark Ace inclined his head in understanding, before leading Lark out the door. They walked through the halls in silence, paying little attention to the salutes Talon soldiers snapped off to Dark Ace, and bows made towards the future Cyclonis.

He led her outside, towards a small arena that served as a training ground for recruits. Behind them, the fortress they had just left stood silhouetted against the angry red glare of the sky. Blue sky had not graced the terra of Cyclonia for generations.

"Lesson the first," Dark Ace said smoothly, rounding on the child. "Hiding." Taking her by the arm, he thrust her into the shadows behind a door leading into the interior of the arena, away from the open-aired sand circle at the center.

"No!" she said indignantly, coming back into the open. "I'm not going to stand around like a gleep for slaughter," she told him, parroting her grandfather. "You're supposed to teach me how to fight."

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he quickly suppressed it as he drew his blade, activating its energy field as he pointed it at her. "Very well, then. Defend yourself."

Lark blinked, looking around as if expecting a weapon might magically appear for her. When none did, she took a step back, "Um…."

"What's the matter? Can't you?"

"No, but…."

"Precisely," Dark Ace announced, sheathing the weapon. "Listen carefully, because I am only going to tell you this once, and you'll do well to remember it. The time for games is over. I am charged with preparing you to face life or death situations. Your job is to stay alive. Never fight a battle you cannot win, not if you can help it."

Lark crossed her arms, frowning at him. "So I'm just supposed to run and hide all the time?"

"No. Only until you've been properly trained. I just don't want you thinking that if you can copy a few moves, you know how to fight. That will only get you killed, and if you get killed, that means I have failed."

"Grandfather says that you're the best. You never fail."

"And I don't intend to start now," he smirked. "So, until you can prove to me that you've learned your lessons, what will you do if a fight breaks out?"

"Hide," came her grudging reply.


	3. Those Who Do Not Learn From History

Time passed in a bit of a blur for Lark. As her grandfather had warned, her studies had become more difficult and time consuming, leaving little room for anything else. It wasn't all bad. She found crystal lore to be fascinating, and learning how to fight could be exciting at time. But history? Not so much.

She was being raised to look to the future, after all. Why would she need to know about the past? Her tutor claimed that by studying history, people could learn from past mistakes. But her grandfather had already told her what the Cyclonian Empire's greatest mistake had been: not crushing their opposition when the rebels first rose up against them. He had made her promise to not make the same mistake, and she had given him her word. Not that her young mind could fully grasp the enormity of what he expected her to do, someday. To her, his speech had conjured up visions of her squishing annoying bugs underfoot. She had done that plenty of times, before. No problem.

So really, most history lessons seemed useless to her. Which was why she was leaning back on her elbows, staring up at the sky as her tutor droned on about…something. She smiled to herself. She had been the one to suggest holding class outside, and her tutor was happy to oblige, thinking that it would help his pupil focus. And she was focused. Not on the lesson, of course, but on watching the squadrons in the sky above practice.

Boreal, the governor of Terra Bluster, was leading his squadron against the Dark Ace and his men. The two groups were dutifully blasting away at one another, while Boreal and Dark Ace focused their attention on each other.

Boreal was a tall, broad-shouldered man, who had been one of her father's best Talon leaders. He was older than Dark Ace, old enough to have two children a handful of years older than her, and more experienced, but Dark Ace possessed a natural talent that had the other man on the defensive.

As she watched, the two men circled each other. Suddenly, Dark Ace turned his Switchblade towards the other and charged, delivering a vicious slash that Boreal parried with the shaft of his energy spear. A flurry of attacks from Dark Ace followed, which Boreal parried before yelling wordlessly and sending a powerful jab towards the younger man's ribs. With lightning quick reflexes, Dark Ace dodged and grabbed Boreal's spear hand at the wrist before he could recover from his forward momentum, rendering him defenseless while Dark Ace raised his blade overhead and slashed downward. Boreal revved his engine, breaking free and disengaging. Dark Ace's weapon managed only to slice off the end of Boreal's red, tied back hair as the older man retreated out of range.

Wheeling his Heli-Blade around to face his opponent, Boreal found Dark Ace standing on his Switchblade, headed straight for him. Raising his spear once more, he sent a blast of energy shooting towards him. Dark Ace raised his blade and the air around him seemed suddenly charged. Leaping into the air, a nimbus of crackling red electricity surrounded him as he brought the blade down, sending his own blast towards Boreal's. The two charges collided, the red lightning burning through the other and continuing on its course towards Boreal. The blast hit him, unseating him. He managed to maintain his grip on the handlebar of his Heli-Blade, though the sudden uneven weight distribution sent the vehicle into a downward spiral. Dragging himself back into his seat, Boreal pulled out of the spin before he could hit the ground. He looked up at Dark Ace, and raised his spear in a salute, acknowledging that the other man had won the round.

The exercises completed, Boreal gathered his squadron, and they flew back to the Bluster Chapter's Destroyer. Dark Ace's forces flew off towards one of the fortress's hangar bays, while Dark Ace himself headed down to the outcropping where she and her history tutor sat. Wings retracted, and wheels appeared, as he transformed the Switchblade into its bike form a few inches from the ground. It dropped the rest of the way to the rocky terrain as he skid to a halt nearby. Dismounting, he walked over to them, bowing before asking, "Are you finished here?"

"You're early," her tutor protested, though weakly. One learned not to press one's luck around the Dark Ace.

"Yes, I know," Dark Ace replied. "Boreal asked to cut the training short, today. Apparently, he promised to start teaching his youngest how to fly."

Lark looked from Dark Ace, to his Switchblade Elite. "Can you teach me?"

The Dark Ace frowned consideringly, before shaking his head. "I think you're still a bit young for that."

She frowned. She had met Boreal's son a few times. The boy was a few forks short of a state dinner. If his father trusted him to catch on to the basics of riding, she had no doubt she could. She said as much.

Dark Ace laughed, and swept an arm towards his bike in invitation. She stood and walked over to it, looking it over. His was a modified version of the Switchblade Elite, heavily armored. "I'll teach you about the controls," he offered, helping her get settled onto the seat. "But when I actually teach you how to ride one, it'll be with a stripped down model."

He went over the controls, discussing propulsion and breaking, maneuverability, weapons systems, and the modifications he had installed himself. "When do I actually get to drive one?" she asked.

"When you're older."

From the Destroyer passing above came the screech of tires, followed by a Heli-Blade in bike mode careening out of the ship, a wide-eyed, dark-haired boy clinging to it as it plummeted downward. Boreal stood at the edge of the Destroyer's cargo bay, yelling instructions. Panicked, the boy let go of the bike and pulled his parachute cord. Apparently, this is not what Boreal had been telling him to do, because he slapped a hand to his forehead, disappearing back into the Destroyer. The Heli-Blade smashed into bits as it crashed a good distance away, while the boy made a hard landing nearby. He stood up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at the destroyed vehicle, winced, and looked forlornly up at the Destroyer, where his sister now stood at the edge their father had vacated, laughing her head off.

"Okay," she agreed.


	4. Creative Energy

Lark chipped away carefully at the raw crystal in front of her with a laser crystal cutter, under the watchful eye of yet another one of her tutors.

"Remember," he told her gravely. Widgeon was always grave. He took his crystal mastery very seriously. "Let the crystal's true form reveal itself to you. If you try to force it, you will only destroy the crystal."

She paused, setting the cutter aside as she looked up at him. "When are we going to move on?"

Widgeon blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"When are you going to teach me something new? Like combining crystals?"

He frowned at the question. "That is a very advanced science. Why, it took me years to even…"

"This," she declared over the top of him, tapping the half cut crystal, "is too easy."

"Is it?" Widgeon asked, crossing his arms. "Then I suppose you would have no trouble identifying the crystal, now?"

"It's a velocity crystal."

He smiled smugly. "I understand why you would think so, but that is incorrect. It is, in fact, a creeper crystal."

"No, it's a velocity crystal."

"Impossible," Widgeon said. "The coloration and structure of the two are similar, true, but a refined velocity crystal has six facets, while a creeper crystal has seven. And this clearly has seven," he said, turning his practiced eye upon the half emerged crystal.

It was Lark's turn to cross her arms. Widgeon shook his head and picked up the cutter. He made short work of refining the crystal. "Now then, there are…" his voice trailed off as he studied the crystal. "Six facets," he said grudgingly, giving Lark a nod. "Very impressive, your Highness."

"So you'll teach me something else, then?"

"I'm sorry, Master Cyclonis was quite clear on the matter. He will not accept any shortcuts in your training. It will be at least two years before we can move on to what you're asking."

She sighed, annoyed. "Why can't I experiment a little?"

"Experimenting?" Widgeon sounded scandalized. "Oh, no, that's even more advanced. I could not allow that for at least five years. Why, you could kill yourself, if something went wrong. No, no that won't do at all."

"I understand," she answered, a little too quickly. "I won't do anything dangerous," she said, not looking him in the eye. Her gaze flickered towards a machine that sat in the corner of the lab, before moving quickly away.

"Good," he said, apparently not noticing her shifty behavior. "I think we're done here for the day." He bowed to her. She nodded, and left. Walking down the hall, she turned the corner, then stopped, pressing her back against the wall, and peering around the corner towards the lab. She waited for what seemed like forever, until Widgeon came out. She watched as he walked down to the opposite end of the hall and disappeared. Slowly counting to ten, she headed back to the lab, letting herself in.

Closing the door behind her, she went straight to her investigation of the room's contents. Opening a storage cabinet, she found that it housed several rows of glass boxes, each filled with a different type of crystal. She grinned, skimming the labels until she found what she was looking for. "Shell crystals," she whispered to herself, picking out a transparent, palm-sized crystal. With it in hand, she turned her attention to the item that had held her attention while she lied to Widgeon: the Attribute Allocater. Walking over to it, she slipped the shell crystal into the docking port at its center. It fit perfectly, as it was meant to do. Shell crystals were so named because they had no specific function on their own. They had to be given a purpose through exposure to another crystal, or, more interestingly, several other crystals at once.

This particular Attribute Allocater had three focusers, which was typical of such machines. Most Crystal Masters did not like to risk the instability that came with trying to mix more than three crystals at once. She had had to read about that in one of her books. Widgeon himself would never have taught her that himself so 'soon'. She scoffed. When she became the Master Cyclonis, one of the first things she planned to do was to create her own Allocater, one that wouldn't subscribe to the old traditions.

She walked over to the crystal cutting station, and picked up the velocity crystal that had been left there. This she fed into the first focuser. The mechanical claw latched onto it, and moved so that it had the crystal poised over the shell, in standby mode. Going back to the storage cupboard, she looked through the boxes once more, pondering the other two choices. She took a levitation crystal, and, after some more deliberation, a shield crystal.

Once the three crystals were in place, she fired up the machine. The mechanical arms sprang to life, imbuing the shell crystal with the characteristics of the three parent crystals every time one touched the central crystal's surface. The process took a while. Each strike to the shell had to be brief, so that it absorbed only a little energy at a time. Overload the shell crystal, and the results would be disastrous. The Attribute Allocater carefully monitored the energy level of the shell crystal, and the operator of the Allocater had to carefully monitor the machines monitoring. Only the excitement that came with the prospect of creating a completely unique crystal stopped the process from being a mind-numbingly dull experience.

The shell crystal slowly lost its transparency, taking on a pink hue. The pink darkened until it had turned the crystal a blood red. The machine's warning alarm went off, causing Lark to jump. She hastily switched off the machine and ran over to the door, listening for the telltale sounds of someone coming to investigate the noise. Hearing nothing, she went back to the machine and took the new crystal. Fastening an activator around it, she discarded the other three and slipped her new toy into a pocket. Pilfering an eruption crystal from the closet, she took one last look around the room to ensure that everything was in its rightful place before leaving.

Sneaking through the fortress to find a good place to test her creation, she finally found a cargo bay that was not in use. She set the eruption crystal on an empty crate and stepped back. Taking out the crystal, she held it towards the crate, took aim, and unleashed the crystal's power. A beam of red light shot out of the crystal and towards the eruption stone. When it hit the eruption crystal, it enveloped it in red light and propelled it with significant force upward and outward, where it hit the opposite wall. The impact caused the eruption crystal to detonate, but thanks to the new crystal's shielding properties, the explosion was kept contained within the red glow.

Lark laughed, quite pleased with herself. She had created her first crystal, an extremely useful one at that, and she had done it without Widgeon looking over her shoulder. Slipping her newest prized possession back into her pocket, she left the cargo bay, a proud smile on her face.


	5. On the Defensive

The Dark Ace felt his small smile of encouragement fade. He had been directing Lark through cool-down drills when he sensed a pair of eyes doing some drilling of their own, right through the back of his head. He had turned to find Tanager watching them, and the man did not look to be in a good mood.

He had not served under Tanager the first time he had been the Master Cyclonis. It was during Lark's father's reign that he had been old enough to join the Talon ranks. That Master Cyclonis had been a fairly uncomplicated man. He had been quick to anger, and allowed that anger to rule him rather than the other way around. But it would be easy to spot that anger building, and to get well out of the way before it burst forth. Furthermore, such outbursts were rarely misplaced. If you found yourself on the receiving end of his ire, you very probably deserved it. He was guileless, a fact that did not serve him well politically, as the current situation of Cyclonia proved, but that same lack of savvy made him surprisingly easy to work for.

Tanager, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He was shrewd, manipulative. His genius had built an empire. But he was cold, very cold. And he was very difficult to read. Which was why, if you found yourself the target of his obvious displeasure, you should be very, very worried. And why, if you found yourself the target of his obvious displeasure, you wouldn't have time to avert danger.

Dark Ace wondered briefly what kind of ruler Lark would grow into, and thought that she might fall squarely between the two extremes of her forebears. She possessed Tanager's cunning and intellect, but there was something about her that was reminiscent of her father. Directness, and a willingness to take risks and get her hands dirty every now and then. Not that Tanager was above such cowboy diplomacy. One did not conquer the world without taking a few risks along the way. But Lark and her father shared an ability to pick themselves up and dust themselves off after a failure, moving on without missing a beat. Tanager, with his mercurial temperament and coolly calculated plotting, was less resilient.

Lark would be quite the force to be reckoned with.

Beside him, Lark had noticed her grandfather, and had picked up on the mood, as well. She did not greet him as Dark Ace bowed, and they both waited for him to give some indication as to why he was there. He rarely checked in personally on Lark's progress. Usually he would merely call her into the throne room every few weeks and quiz her on her studies.

"Time grows short," he said without preamble. "And this so-called training is going nowhere. She has made no progress from last month. This is unacceptable!"

Dark Ace knew better than to protest. They had, unfortunately, had this conversation before.

"When I chose you for this assignment," Tanager said, his voice back to its too calm tone, far worse than any yelling he could do, "did I give any indication that I wanted her coddled?"

"No, Master Cyclonis."

"Then why do you insist on treating her with kid gloves?"

It was a rhetorical question, and so Dark Ace stood silent, waiting for Tanager to continue. It was true that he did not treat her the same as he would a common Talon recruit. But the fact was, she wasn't the same. She was much younger, for one, and the heir to the throne. Injuring her would be far easier, and could have far more dire consequences. And so he trained her at a slower pace, and pulled his punches. She was still learning, and he was confident that by the time she became the Master Cyclonis, she would be well equipped to go toe to toe with any assassin or Sky Knight, and win.

"I want to see for myself just how far she has, or has not, come under your tutelage," Tanager said quietly, as he reached down to retrieve the weapon Dark Ace hadn't noticed he had leaning against the arena wall. It was an ornate battle axe. The shaft was etched with intricate images of horrible creatures, half human, half bird, and the blade was studded with several phoenix crystals. It was a weapon designed to intimidate.

Many of Master Cyclonis' detractors would claim that he had grown too frail to wield the massive axe. They would be wrong.

Dark Ace unconsciously stepped in front of Lark, and Tanager swung the axe, deliberately bringing the blunt end of the head smashing into his left arm, snapping the brace that supported it. He clutched his arm, gritting his teeth as pain shot through his arm from the short-circuiting electrodes connected to his shoulder and wrist. He had worn that bionic brace since his fight with the Storm Hawks had nearly cost him his arm. Without it, the arm was useless.

Tanager casually pushed him aside, and stood facing his granddaughter.

Dark Ace had heard her gasp when he got hit, but saw no sign of that dismay now, as she brought her staff up, pointing it at Tanager. He saw only stubborn resolve on her narrow face. The clawed end of the staff housed a blazer crystal. But he knew that she had been sneaking into the crystal lab for some time now, experimenting with combinations, many of them going towards modifications to her staff. He was not sure if Tanager was aware of that, or not. If he wasn't, he would be by the end of their fight.

Tanager swung his axe, and Lark jumped back, putting enough distance between them to send a blast of fire towards her opponent. For his part, Tanager activated the phoenix crystals and swung the axe again, in a horizontal arc. A wave of fire that dwarfed what Lark's blazer crystal produced swept towards her, consuming the blazer's blast when the two energy bursts met. She retreated even further, out of the path of the fiery wave.

Tanager approached her with slow, measured steps, his confidence that he had the upper hand apparent. Dark Ace paid more attention to Lark than Master Cyclonis, and saw her discreetly press a button, one of many hidden within the deceptively seamless staff. Tanager raised his axe overhead, bringing it down with considerable force. Lark smirked ever so slightly as she raised her staff, bracing it defensively above her to block the blow. On her own, it would have been a futile, foolish attempt. She did not have nearly enough strength to stop that axe. But as the two weapons met, the axe bounced violently off the staff, throwing Tanager backwards, courtesy of a hidden repelling crystal.

Getting to his feet, Tanager swung the axe several times, emitting bursts of phoenix fire towards Lark. Another push of a button activated her staff's shielding crystal, which protected her from the fire.

Tanager continued to press his attack, and Lark continued to defend, using up a good portion of the tricks she had up her sleeve in the process. After a short while, it seemed that Tanager was tiring. He was, after all, not as young as he used to be. And he had long since fallen out of practice with melee combat.

He paused momentarily, watching his granddaughter. When she did not move from her defensive stance, he said, "Let us end this, shall we?" He raised his axe once more, and all signs of fatigue disappeared as he attacked. He sent another barrage of energy bursts towards her, and she held her staff before her, letting the shielding crystal do its work. But unlike the other times Tanager had made this type of attack, he did not stand still, but advanced, all the while keeping Lark occupied blocking, until he got within range. Then he swung out low to the ground with the shaft end of the axe, sweeping her feet out from under her before delivering a sharp blow to the staff, disarming her. Her staff clattered to the ground out of reach while she landing flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her. Tanager raised his axe and brought it down, stopping when the blade was a mere inch from her chest.

"I am disappointed," he told a red-faced Lark. "You should have attacked when it seemed as if I was weakening, but you did not. Your defense is impressive, but your offense is lacking. I had all the time in the world to study you, and to formulate a plan to defeat you. And you allowed it. You could be dead, now, and you'd be to blame."

"And him," he said, rounding on Dark Ace. "For obviously neglecting an important part of your education. A mistake that will not happen again," he finished darkly. He turned back to Lark, reaching down to haul her to her feet. When she went to retrieve her fallen staff, he took it from her. Looking it over, he found and pried open one of its secret compartments, removing the crystal within. "Hmm, this is no ordinary repelling crystal," he said casually. "From the strength of it, I'd say someone has been tinkering with the Allocater. I'll have to have a talk with Widgeon." Lark paled slightly.

"Walk with me," Tanager ordered, speaking to the Dark Ace. Still cradling his arm, he trailed after Cyclonis.

"We have to be harder on her," Tanager said, once they were out of earshot of Lark. "She may need to be even stronger that I originally suspected. I've heard rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

"That Terras Bluster, Nimbus, and Squall are in the process of forming an alliance, with intentions of seceding from the Empire. I trust you understand the position that puts me in."

Dark Ace did. Those were three of their largest and closest terras. Lose them, and others would follow. Lose them, and they could turn around and conquer Cyclonia. There would be a new Master Cyclonis, then, and it wouldn't be Lark.

"At best, they would be content to leave us in peace, but then Lark would have an even more difficult time rebuilding the empire than she is sure to have, now. From what I saw back there, I am not certain she has it in her."

"I believe she does," Dark Ace answered.

"Then draw it out of her. Her future depends on it."

They walked in silence, until they reached the crystal lab, and Tanager stopped. He held up the staff. "This is impressive," he admitted. "She has a gift, one that Widgeon obviously does not recognize. She must get it from her mother."

Dark Ace didn't answer. They rarely spoke of his older sister. Kestrel had died in a riding accident when Lark was only a few months old. Lark did not even know that he was her uncle. It was selfish of him, he knew, but he didn't want to have to answer her questions and drag up old memories. Tanager seemed to understand, for he never pressed the issue.

When Dark Ace said nothing, Tanager said, "I need to speak with Widgeon, tell him not to hold Lark back. Give me your brace. I'll have it replaced." Dark Ace removed the shattered device, handing it over with a bow, before being dismissed.


	6. The Witch of Terra Mire, Pt 1

"Typhon's daughter, eh?" the woman asked, smiling in a way that Lark did not like, although she could not say why. She was a tall woman, her golden brown hair falling loose to her waist, except for several thin braids, each interwoven with a multitude of small, colorful crystals. Her smile never touched her green eyes, eyes that seemed far older than her youthful face. She took her chin in one cold hand, tilting her head up to study her face, and Lark pulled away. The woman smirked. "Looks more like you than him, the scrawny little thing."

Beside her, her grandfather chuckled, seemingly at his ease in this strange house, with this strange woman.

Dark Ace, on the other hand, did not seem to appreciate being there any more than Lark did. He stood stiffly, arms crossed across his chest, frowning slightly. Everything about him warned people to keep their distance. All it did was attract the woman's attention. "Hello, again, Typhon's broody young friend," she said, with the same creepy smile she had used when mentioning her father, as she laid her hand on his arm.

"Master Cyclonis has business to discuss with you, Lamiya," was all Dark Ace said, frowning down at the hand on his arm until Lamiya removed it.

"Of course he does," Lamiya replied, stepping back. "The Master," she said, her tone mocking, "would not grace Terra Mire with his presence if he did not want something."

Lark clenched her fists as her side. Just who did this woman think she was?

Lamiya seemed to read her mind, for she gave Lark another unpleasant smirk. "I don't appreciate people putting on airs in my presence. I've known Tanager for a long time, since before he was master of Cyclonia, let alone any other terra."

Lark stared at her. That was impossible! The woman standing in front of her did not look any older than Dark Ace. Lamiya ignored her gaping, turning back to Tanager. "You know I don't take students this young. What's the matter, feeling the weight of the years pressing down on you?"

Tanager merely smiled. "As I've said before, we are not all as willing as you to pay the price necessary to escape that weight."

Lamiya laughed, as if he had told a great joke. "Your soul is as dark as the deepest recesses of the Black Gorge, already," she said dismissively.

He shrugged, an equally dismissive gesture, but a scowl briefly twisted his features as he laid a hand on Lark's shoulder. "I've done nothing more than what was required to achieve my goals. The only immortality I need stands here." He gave her shoulder a light squeeze.

"Touching," Lamiya said with a smile that showed too many teeth. "Old age has not been kind to you."

"Will you train her or not?" Dark Ace asked impatiently, bringing them back to the matter at hand.

"Down, boy," Lamiya replied haughtily. She arched an eyebrow at Tanager. "This one needs a shorter leash."

Lark looked up at her grandfather. "I want to go home," she demanded. She didn't like this place, or this woman. Being here was starting to make her feel sick.

"Princess wants to go home," Lamiya said with a sigh that fell well short of regretful. "I don't take unwilling students, either. It doesn't work."

"She's not going anywhere."

Lark scowled at her grandfather. She never asked much of him, always tried to do what he expected her to do, and without complaint. Why couldn't he do this one thing for her?

"We both know why she is not comfortable here," Tanager finished.

Lamiya grunted, hunkering down to look at her eye to eye. "How old are you?"

"Nine."

"Tanager didn't drag your father out here until he was thirteen. Not that it mattered. Never could teach that boy much. How do you feel?"

"Well," Lark said, giving her the universally expected reply to such a question.

The woman sneered. "I'm not making small talk here, girl. How are you feeling right now? Headachy? Nauseous?"

Lark nodded wordlessly, and Lamiya straightened up, glancing at Tanager before saying to her, "Get used to it. Until you learn to control it, it'll control you."

"It? What?"

The woman didn't answer.

Tanager knelt down and gave her a brief, awkward embrace. That worried her. Her grandfather was not a demonstrative man. She couldn't remember the last time he had hugged her. She thought it might have been when her father had died, but she wasn't certain.

"You're going to stay here for a while. I want you to pay close attention to what she has to teach you. Learn it well, and you'll command a power to which very few people have access."

"How long is a while?"

"As long as it takes," Lamiya cut in.

"Is he staying?" Lark pointed to Dark Ace.

"No. I need him with me. You'll be safe here."

A dull ache settled into her chest. She was being left here with Lamiya. Alone. For how long, she did not know. To what ends, she did not know.

When Tanager stood, she looked at Dark Ace. She started to take a step towards him, then hesitated. When he said his goodbyes and turned away to leave, however, she moved, hugging him. He tensed in surprise. He wasn't used to being hugged, either. But when she let go, he smiled down at her. "You will do well," he told her. "And when you return to Cyclonia, I'll teach you how to pilot a Skimmer, all right?"

"All right," she agreed.

After Dark Ace and her grandfather left, she turned towards Lamiya with a sullen frown. "Pouting doesn't become you," Lamiya told her. "And it won't get you anything here. You'll sleep upstairs. The bed is mine. The cot is yours. No arguments. Are you hungry?"

"No," she answered.

"Oh well, I am. Fix me something to eat, and then I don't really care what you do with the rest of the evening, so long as you get to bed at a decent hour. We're going to get an early start in the morning."

When Lark didn't move, Lamiya raised an eyebrow. "Problem?"

"I can't cook."

"You seem like a smart girl. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Lark sighed, and went to the kitchen. After much consideration and snooping through cupboards and the icebox, she settled on the path of least resistance, and slapped together a sandwich, which she set before Lamiya wordlessly before walking outside.

A wide deck wound itself around the perimeter of Lamiya's house, which was circular and built upon a wooden platform that held it up and out of the murky water beneath. A causeway connected the house to what Lark presumed was solider ground off in the distance.

Evening mist had crept over the water and onto the deck, swirling around her feet as rain drizzled half-heartedly from grey clouds above. The place smelled rather heavily of rotting vegetation, which didn't help her stomach at all.

She paced around the house once, which revealed a 360 degree view of the same bleak, marshy landscape, before she sat on the deck, hugging her legs to her as she rested her chin upon her knees, heedless of the cold and rain.

She had heard of some terras that were home to flying insects that lit up at night. This was, apparently, not one of them. As the sky grew darker, however, she did notice a strange, pulsating luminescence beneath the water. She watched the light, and as she did, it seemed as though the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach rose and ebbed right along with it. The effect was strangely disorienting, and after only a few minutes, she found herself getting dizzily to her feet and rushing to the edge of the deck, retching over the side of the railing.

She stood there, her knuckles white from her grip on the railing, arms and legs shaking while tears stung her eyes. She was sick, and embarrassed, and she'd give anything to be home right now.

After a while, when the shaking finally subsided, she went back into the house. Lamiya was nowhere to be seen. Getting herself a glass of water, she went up the stairs. The other woman was already asleep, and Lark wondering vaguely just how early she intended on getting up in the morning. Curling up on the cot, Lark pulled the blanket over her head and settled down to her first sleepless night away from Cyclonia.


	7. The Witch of Terra Mire, Pt 2

It had been a truly terrible night.

The dizzying sickness refused to let up, which made sleeping difficult. What made it even more difficult was the constant noise. On Cyclonia, the only sound that could be heard at night was the muffled howling of the wind that gave the terra its name. Here, there was a cacophony of chirps, croaks, trills, and growls from the creatures that made the swamp their home, many of whom were, unfortunately for her, nocturnal.

And so she was still awake when she heard Lamiya get up. She listened, still hidden away beneath the blanket, as the woman lifted the creaky lid of a chest and rummaged through it before standing and walking over to her cot. Lark jerked, surprised, as something was dropped on top of her.

"Ah, you're awake," came Lamiya's amused, unsurprised voice. "Big day, today. I'm taking you on a tour of the terra."

Lark poked her head out from underneath the blanket, squinting at the window. It was still dark, and raining harder than it had been the evening before, from the sound of it. She sat up. A stray lock of hair fell into her eyes, and she irritably blew it out of the way.

"It's raining."

"Get used to it."

"I still feel sick."

"As I said yesterday, get used to that, too."

"Why?" Lark groaned, flopping back down and squeezing her eyes shut, as if that would make everything go away.

It did not.

Lamiya pulled the blanket away from her. "My, my, and here I thought your grandfather had been the grumpiest child I'd ever met. Now your father, your father was quite cheerful in comparison. But he would be, wouldn't he? As perceptive as a brick wall, Typhon was, but such a handsome young man …."

Lark stubbornly kept her eyes closed, but the woman refused to shut up. Finally, Lark pushed herself off the cot. Immediately, Lamiya stopped the mindless prattle. "There are clothes for you," she said, pointing to the floor, where the bundle of clothing that had been dropped on her earlier had fallen in a scattered jumble when she had been so rudely relieved of her blanket. "No arguments." With that, she swept out of the room and down the stairs, leaving Lark to get ready.

She dubiously retrieved the clothes from where they had fallen. They consisted of a pair of pants, a shirt, and a jacket, all in tones of mottled green and brown. The pants and jacket had the slightly slick feel of waterproof material, with a softer, warmer lining within. Everything looked a bit too big for her, and smelled musty, as if they had been packed away in that chest for far too long.

"This is going to be a fun day," she muttered sarcastically to herself, as she changed into them. Snapping the jacket closed, she went downstairs. Shoving her hands into her pockets, and discovering that the ensemble also came with a pair of gloves, she slouched into the kitchen, where Lamiya was sitting at the table, which was set with a modest breakfast.

Lamiya looked her over with a grin. "It may not be up to your courtly standards, but it'll keep you warm and dry."

Lark slumped into the other chair, crossing her arms.

"I suggest you eat something," Lamiya added.

"Not hungry."

"You will be."

"Doubt it."

"Mind over matter, m'dear."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's all in your head. The sooner you begin learning how to overcome it, the better."

Lark thought of the previous night, and frowned. "I'm not imagining it."

"I didn't say you were."

She sighed, confused. Why must the woman be so difficult? Taking a piece of toast, she only managed to eat a few bites before dropping the rest onto her plate, pushing it away.

"Suit yourself." Lamiya stood from the table, picking up a knapsack, thrusting it at Lark. "Pay attention to what you see, today. I expect you to be able to tell me what sets this terra apart from others by the time we get back."

Frowning, Lark raised the hood of her jacket before taking and shouldering the pack. Lamiya expected her to know how Terra Mire was different from other terras? She'd never set foot on any terra but Cyclonia before coming here. There were hundreds of them. Thousands! The woman was crazy if she actually expected her to be able to answer this question.

Lamiya moved towards the door, and Lark followed. "Wait, you're going out like that?" she asked, as the woman stepped outside. She was dressed in the same odd, light robe as she had been inside. She hadn't even bothered adding a cloak, let alone bundle up against the elements as she had had Lark do.

"I have my ways," Lamiya smiled, stepping out from under the protective awning over the door, and out into the rain. Only, she wasn't in the rain at all. The drops splashed a few inches above her head and ran harmlessly down to the ground without touching her, as if an invisible dome surrounded her.

"Oh," was all Lark could say. She stepped away from the awning, and immediately felt the large raindrops patter against her hood. "Okay." She tugged her hood further forward, under the pretense of guarding against the rain, as she stared at Lamiya. She wasn't using a crystal. Lark could tell. If she was, the shield would be glowing faintly in response to each drop. But there was nothing. Lark shivered slightly. The more time she spent with this woman, the more questions she had, and the less she trusted her.

Turning, Lamiya started off along the causeway. Lark followed at a short distance. The sky had lightened, though it was still a deep, stormy grey, and the glow from under the water was still apparent, shimmering eerily as the water rippled from the rain. Lark looked away, focusing on Lamiya's back.

They did not speak, and when Lark tried to joke, a little nervously, about Lamiya making a terrible tour guide, her attempt was met with more silence.

Eventually, the causeway gave way to solid ground, or as solid as one could hope for on this terra. Mud squelched unpleasantly underfoot as she stepped off the wooden boards. It was the thick, deep kind of mud that made travel difficult. Equally inhospitable was the plant life that greeted this new leg of their journey. Gnarled and overgrown, it had long since erased all trace of any path that may once have existed. The terra seemed choked with it all. The smell of rot and mildew was stronger here than at the house, and if she looked carefully, she could see plenty of brown and black and cottony white underneath the overwhelming green.

Unperturbed, Lamiya unsheathed a long knife she kept at her side, and chose a blazer crystal from the pouch at her belt. Fitting the knife with the crystal, she activated it, and began hacking through the foliage, cutting them a more effective path than Lark would have thought possible, though travel was still slow, annoying work.

Before long, Lark's mind started to wander, thinking of Cyclonia, and wondering how long she'd be stuck here. Her musings didn't last long, however, as the toe of her boot got caught in a gnarled root, tripping her.

She pitched forward, throwing her hands out in front of her to break her fall. She landed hard as one forearm struck another root, while her other hand hit the mud, sinking in and scrapping painfully against something sharp and unyielding just below the surface, the gloves offering little protection against abrasions.

"Ugh." She retrieved her hand from the mud, frowning as the unmistakable glow of crystal shined up at her before the mud resettled, hiding it from view once more.

She looked up at Lamiya, as if the woman might say something, but she had only paused long enough for Lark to begin struggling back to her feet before turning and walking on.

It was as if that one accidental revelation opened her eyes. As they walked along, she spotted more and more crystals littering the ground, as plentiful as rocks. Around midmorning, they stopped. Lamiya took the pack from Lark and sat on a fallen log. "We'll take a break," she said, speaking for the first time since they left. "You hungry, now?"

Lark shook her head. As she did, her peripheral vision caught another strong light glowing off towards her left. "Can I go have a look around?"

"Don't go far."

She didn't have to go far. Almost immediately, she came upon a large fissure leading into a subterranean cave. It was the cave itself that was casting the brilliant light she had seen. A staircase seemed carved from raw crystal, and she took them, descending down. She stumbled and nearly fell as she reached the bottom. The entire cavern seemed made of crystal. The walls glowed, great columns jutted up from the ground and down from the ceiling, each of them crystalline.

The cave was amazing, massive. But despite it all, she suddenly felt horribly claustrophobic. There was a presence here, and it pressed in on her; overwhelming, suffocating, invasive. She fell back against the stairs as her head swam. She couldn't think properly, couldn't move properly. She tried to stand, but could only manage a few useless, jerky motions. For one brief moment, she had a strange moment of clarity as she thought back to a time when she had nearly shorted out the Attribute Allocater completely. It had looked how she felt. The image made her panic. She found it in herself to shut her eyes, drawing in on herself. She found her center, and mentally built a wall around it to shut out the chaotic world outside. Slowly, she imagined that wall being pushed back outward.

Even more slowly, she became aware that she could move. She was shaking terribly, drenched in sweat, but she managed to stand. She felt drained, but the sickness and the vertigo were gone.

Then she became aware that she was not alone. She looked around, and found Lamiya staring at her with a surprised look on her face.

"Let's get you out of here," she said, picking her up as if she was nothing. Lark protested being treated like a child, causing Lamiya to laugh and point out that she was a child, and to stop arguing. Lamiya carried her up the stairs, and back to the log. Setting her down, she sat beside her.

Lark broke the silence. "This terra, it's filled with crystals, more than any other terra," she offered as an answer to the question posed earlier that morning. It seemed so long ago, now.

"Made of them would be closer to the truth," Lamiya replied. "Far more crystal than earth forms Terra Mire." She dug a sandwich out of the pack, and offered it to Lark, who took it gratefully.

"I don't understand what that has to do with what's been happening to me," she said, taking a bite of the sandwich.

"Energy. Think of a crystal as a magnet, only instead of iron, it attracts and traps energy, keeping it stored up until someone comes along, refines it, sticks it in a machine, and drains it."

"Uh huh," Lark said, still not seeing the connection.

"Think of Terra Mire as Atmos' largest magnet, then. If you could see the energy swirling around this terra…words cannot describe it. It rages like a maelstrom. That cave is a particularly strong focal point."

"See the energy? That's impossible."

"No, it isn't."

"Huh?"

Lamiya laughed. "Why do you think you are here? For the fresh air? You possess a rare sensitivity to the universe's energy. As do I, and your grandfather. Your father had some miniscule ability, though hardly worth the effort it took to train him. Unfortunate, that. It is an inherited trait that runs particularly strong in your family, as it does in mine, and in a handful of others, most of whom never develop it."

"Why not?"

"That sensitivity, in its highest developed form, allows you to manipulate energy, without a medium."

"Why would people not want to develop that ability?"

"Most people consider such power to be unnatural."

"But they use crystals. It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Not entirely," Lamiya answered slowly. "Think of energy as water flowing downriver, and as crystals as the lake that water will fill. Now, think of someone manipulating that energy as them damming up the river and redirecting it elsewhere. Even in the case of mere water, such activity can drastically change the landscape of the areas in question. In the case of something as monumental as the driving force of the universe, well, you can understand how people would be wary."

Lark nodded, but something was still bothering her. "You say that you can see the energy. Why can't I?"

"You have, before. And did what every infant who has such abilities does; you blocked yourself off from it. It's overwhelming. No one can live with such constant chaos and remain sane. The reason I chose this terra as my home, and as a training ground for others, is because it lends itself so well to reawakening the gift. No natural defense mechanisms can stand up to this place for long." She grinned suddenly, "Though you look like you're going to give us trouble in that area."

"What do you mean?"

"Your little episode back there in the cave, of course. As I said, it's a strong focal point, one I use to jumpstart training. Bombards the senses. Quick and dirty tactic, I'll admit. When I allowed your grandfather to discover that cave, I had to haul him back to the house, unconscious. He was out until the next morning. But it worked. You, on the other hand, managed to shore up your defenses even further. Never seen anything like it. Do you remember how you did it?"

"I think so."

"Good. First thing tomorrow, we'll begin working on undoing it."

Lark felt suddenly apprehensive. Lamiya must have seen it on her face, because she spoke, not unkindly.

"To gain control, you need to let it go, just once. Reopen those pathways in your mind, and you'll be able to open and close them at will. Until you do, your time here will be a constant battle with this terra, and I can tell you right now, you won't win. You'll save yourself a lot of pain by cooperating."

Lark frowned. She wasn't some sort of control freak, if that's what the woman was implying. She wasn't trying to be stubborn or difficult. Really.

"First thing tomorrow," Lamiya repeated.

Lark nodded, and Lamiya stood. "Good. Let's go home, then."


	8. The Witch of Terra Mire, Pt 3

The next day dawned with only the threat of rain, instead of the actual thing, which prompted Lamiya to claim it as a sign that the day would be a good one. But with low grey clouds still obscuring the sun from view, and the air heavy with humidity, Lark decided she'd have to wait and see, rather than take Lamiya's word on the matter.

True to her word, the older woman wasted no time in starting her training. As soon as the breakfast dishes had been cleared away, Lamiya had her sitting on the floor before a hearth set with furnace crystals, eyes closed, taking deep, measured breaths. Lamiya called them 'cleansing'. Lark called them 'annoying' and 'painful'.

"That's because you aren't relaxed," Lamiya chided her.

"Yes, I am," Lark told her through gritted teeth.

"Very well. How did you block out the cave's energy yesterday?"

Lark thought back on the previous morning's events, and finally said, "I imagined a wall between me and it."

"Can you see the wall, now?"

Lark shook her head, but as Lamiya prompted her to try, she could see it slowly form in her mind, dark and forbidding, shutting out the world. "Yes."

"Good. Now imagine it pulling back inward, growing transparent as it goes."

Lark did as she was told, but as the wall grew smaller and fainter, the claustrophobic pressure returned, bringing with it all the pain, sickness, and confusion as before. It scared her. She hated that feeling. She wasn't supposed to fear anything. Pushing the wall firmly back into place, she said sullenly, "I can't."

"Yes, you can. And you must."

"I can't, and I won't!" Lark got to her feet, fists clenched, glaring down at Lamiya. "Who wants to learn your stupid sorcery, anyway? I can use my crystals without it! It wasn't my idea to come here, and I'm not staying. Call my grandfather!"

The other woman's hand snaked out with remarkable speed, grabbing her arm and jerking her back down to the ground. "Stop being childish."

"I'm not being childish!" Lark said angrily, struggling against Lamiya's viselike grip.

"Oh? Well if this isn't you being a spoiled little brat, then it must be you being a spineless coward. Either way, if you grandfather knew, he'd be ashamed," she hissed.

Lark could feel her face flush at the woman's words, and Lamiya continued with a sneer, "As for your use of crystals, whatever paltry talent you believe you have barely scratches the surface of true mastery. I can teach you branches of crystal lore you've never even dreamt were possible. But you'd rather throw temper tantrums than learn. My patience wears thin. Either stop fighting me, or I'll haul you back to Cyclonia, myself. And if I do, I guarantee you that you'll never find me again, and never realize your full potential."

Lark froze, considering the ultimatum. Part of her, a big part, wanted to go back to Cyclonia, to never have to deal with this woman again. She wanted to see her grandfather and Dark Ace, wanted to sleep in her own room; to go back to her real studies, and pretend that none of this ever happened.

But another part reminded her that she was the future Master Cyclonis, and it was her responsibility to take every opportunity she could to gain an advantage over the enemies of Cyclonia. And that's what Lamiya offered, a huge advantage. But more than that, she knew that Lamiya was right. If she went back to Cyclonia now, her grandfather would be ashamed of her. She wasn't stupid. She knew he had his doubts about her, knew that under different circumstances, she wouldn't be his first choice as successor. To then willfully fail…. She felt a lump form in her throat, making it hard to swallow, as she forced herself to relax.

Lamiya snorted, letting go of her arm. "Well don't cry about it," she said gruffly. "Try again."

Lark clenched her jaw, stilling the lip she hadn't noticed was quivering, and closed her eyes. She took a few deep breaths, pulling herself together, and called up the image of the wall.

Resolutely, she began to withdraw the wall, ignoring the terrifying feelings as they came flooding back. Those feelings grew harder to ignore as the wall shrank, becoming nearly unbearable, but Lark was beyond caring about the discomfort. She had to prove herself, to her grandfather, to Cyclonia, to the entire Atmos. It started now.

With that one stubborn thought in mind, the wall came crumbling down. To her shock, the terrible sickness went with it, replaced by a feeling of sheer exhilaration. She opened her eyes, and a whole new world greeted her. One filled with light and color quite unlike the one she was used to.

Everything seemed to be glowing. Before her, Lamiya and her multitude of crystal hair beads shined brighter than anything else in the room, thick tendrils of multi-colored light twisting like snakes in a never-ending dance around her.

Looking out the window, she gasped. It was just as Lamiya had described it; Atmos' most elaborate light show, putting even the most violent lightning storms to shame. Terra Mire was far from the dark, dismal place she had thought. Cyclones of the now visible energy tore through the landscape, pouring into the crystals that made up the terra, so much energy that the crystals couldn't hope to contain it all. Under the water, crystals expelled the excess energy, sending it spinning back upward to rejoin the swirling mass above. What had seemed like dull pulsing in the mundane world looked more like brilliant explosions, nearly too bright to watch.

She looked down at herself, noticing tendrils of energy swirling around her, as well. She raised her arm, and it seemed to glow brighter at the movement. This is what she had been so afraid of these last few days? She laughed. It sounded a bit manic, even to her ears, but she didn't care. She felt more alive, more connected, then she ever had before. She waved her hand again, watching the light ripple.

"Yes, kinetic energy pretty," Lamiya's sardonic tone cut into her fun. "Now if you'll stop staring at your hand and focus on me for a moment…."

"Hmm?" She looked up reluctantly.

"This is an important milestone in your training, true. But seeing is the easy part. Manipulating is another matter entirely." She raised a casual hand, and the tendrils of energy that had been swirling around her so randomly a moment before sprang into action, several of them shooting off towards the small bookshelf set against the far wall. The energy engulfed one of the books before moving back towards Lamiya, brining the book with it. Once it was within reach, Lamiya snatched the floating book out of midair. "One I'll introduce to you later. For now, I'll let you get used to your new ability. If you get tired or overwhelmed, you know how to shut it out, now. It shouldn't cause you any more trouble than flipping a switch."

With that, she settled into a chair with her book, leaving Lark to her own devices.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Lamiya watched, hands clasped calmly behind her back, as Lark finally lost her temper and began taking her frustration out on the marble she had been trying, unsuccessfully, to move without touching. The girl slapped her hand down onto the tabletop, snatching up the small sphere as if she wanted to strangle it. Then she turned, winding back her arm, and threw it with all her might out the window.

'_She's lucky the window was open, or she'd be following it_,' Lamiya thought, but didn't say. "Such a violence prone family," she mused quietly, instead. The girl's head jerked towards her, her eyes narrowed in a steely glare that Lamiya had no doubt would make people tremble with fear someday. Unfortunately for Lark, Lamiya was not one of them, and with a bland, unimpressed look of her own, she set another marble onto the table.

"Remember," she advised. "Dominate the energy. Bend it to your will."

"I know," Lark answered impatiently, glaring down at the new marble.

"Apparently, you do not. If you don't believe that you are in complete control of the world around you, if you don't believe yourself to be the master of the energy surrounding you, then you won't be. And we could stand here staring at that marble all day, without success."

She did not need to look at the marble to know that it sat unmoving on the table. She needed only to watch the energy around Lark, watch as it would occasionally twist off towards the marble in response to Lark's unspoken commands, only to collapse back into it's own, self-appointed patterns after only a few seconds.

"Think of the energy as an extension of yourself. You tell your hand to clench into a fist, and it obeys. This is no different."

She watched as the energy around Lark coalesced into the rough form of a hand, reaching slowly towards the marble.

"Compete confidence…complete control…."

The hand closed around the marble, raising it an inch off the tabletop before Lark, either exhausted from the effort she'd been exerting, or surprised that it had finally worked, lost her concentration, and the hand dissipated. The marble dropped back down to the table, before rolling off and over the edge.

"A passable first attempt," Lamiya told her.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"- And that high concentration is why it is easier to manipulate crystals than free roaming energy," Lamiya finished, letting the three crystals that had been spinning above her outstretched hand settle back down into her palm.

She handed the crystals to Lark. "You try."

Lark held her hand out, and the crystals rose, spinning as they had for Lamiya. After a moment, she raised her hand, palm out, and the crystals began to circle around Lamiya's head, spinning faster and faster. Lark smirked.

Lamiya was impressed with how much Lark had picked up on under her tutelage over the last several months. She hadn't expected much after their rocky start, but she had been proven wrong.

"Show off," Lamiya said, wrestling control of the crystals away from Lark. They clattered to the ground around her. "That's enough of that."

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Lark watched as the crystal exploded in a shower of blue light.

She loved this game.

She stood on the deck outside the house, Lamiya standing a few yards away. Lamiya threw another crystal, and she raised a hand, stopping it in midair before it could reach her.

As it hung suspended before her, she began siphoning energy into the crystal, far too much, too quickly. A purple nimbus grew around the crystal, and she flung it away, out over the water, where it exploded, brilliant purple against the night sky.

"Finale time," was all the warning Lamiya gave, as she tossed three crystals at once. Lark managed to stop them all, overloading them and tossing them out over the swamp, where near simultaneous explosions bathed the sky in green, yellow, and red, before darkness reclaimed the terra.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"My grandfather would not approve of me scattering my atoms all over Atmos."

"You act as if Tanager has never teleported."

"I've never seen him. I've never seen anyone teleport before you, actually."

"And you likely wouldn't. It's not the most pleasant way to travel, and not something I imagine he'd do if the situation didn't demand it."

"Why learn it if I probably won't use it?"

"Because you never know when you'll need to make a hasty exit. And the principles behind teleportation are similar to other…useful little tricks."

"Like what?" Lark asked, but she ventured a guess before the other woman could answer. "How you look in your twenties when you're obviously much older?"

"Astute, but slightly off. More like how this shell _is_ in it's twenties, when I'm obviously much older."

Lark was quiet for a moment, letting that sink in. Finally, she asked, "How?"

"That's a lesson for another time," Lamiya smiled. "Now, do you still wish to forego learning teleportation, or shall I continue?"

"Continue."

"I thought that might be your answer. Very well. The first step, provided you don't actually want your atoms scattered so far across Atmos that you'll never be able to put them back together again, is to…."

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Free time grew increasingly rare as Lamiya's lessons became more complex. Even the book Lark was engrossed in during a few moments of downtime was a thick tome on crystals that she had rescued from a dusty corner of Lamiya's shelves. It was a far cry from light reading, but Lark quickly skimmed through the pages, trying to get as far as she could before Lamiya called her away.

So intent on the book was she that her ears tuned out the unfamiliar noise approaching the house, like the buzzing of an insect. It wasn't until it grew louder that she realized that there was something very familiar about it, after all. It wasn't an insect making that noise, it was an engine.

She set the book aside and went to the door in time to see Dark Ace land on the deck. She stood there in the doorway, watching him power down his Switchblade and stand. He hadn't changed much in the year since she'd seen him last, but she felt a bit awkward as he walked over to her. A part of her remembered a time when she would have rushed to meet him. But she wasn't a little kid, anymore, and so stayed firmly rooted to the spot.

He seemed to note the change, as well. When he reached her, he didn't do anything obvious or condescending, like point out that she had grown. He merely bowed, hand over his heart, and said, simply, "It is good to see you well."

"It is good to see you well, too," she answered, with a small smile that he returned.

"I wasn't expecting to see you, at all," Lamiya said, coming up behind Lark.

Dark Ace transferred his smile to Lamiya, though it grew noticeably colder. "I've come to take her home."

"You've wasted a trip, then. Her training isn't complete."

"Be that as it may, she's coming with me."

"Why?"

"The Empire has lost several terras," he answered reluctantly. "Master Cyclonis wants his heir with him, until the situation becomes less volatile."

Lamiya scoffed, and laid a possessive hand on Lark's shoulder. "It seems to me that she's safer, here."

Lark frowned, taking offense to being talked about as if she wasn't there. Shouldn't she have some say in this? "I'd like to know how we lost terras," she spoke up.

"I'll explain the situation on the way back to Cyclonia," Dark Ace explained, with a pointed glance at Lamiya.

"And I've told you, she's not going. If it's security Tanager is worried about, he should know that this is the safest place for her to be. No one would dare attack here."

Lark thought that claim was probably true. Lamiya had an unbelievable amount of control over the terra, thanks to her gift. A conventional attack on Terra Mire would be suicide.

"Or, if you're so concerned, you're welcome to stay, too," Lamiya offered, letting her hand drop from Lark's shoulder, as she moved closer to Dark Ace, a predatory glint in her eyes.

Dark Ace reached up to grasp the hilt of his energy blade, though he made no move to draw it. "Perhaps I did not make myself clear," he drawled. "Master Cyclonis has ordered her back home. And what Master Cyclonis wants, Master Cyclonis gets. He thought you might be uncooperative, and told me to tell you that should I return to Cyclonia empty handed, no amount of sorcery will be able to save you. He also bid me remind you that you know he is capable of making good on that threat." His smile did not touch his eyes, "Said he learned from the best."

Lamiya's smile was a little too sweet as she asked, "And if you do not return to Cyclonia, at all, dear boy?"

"He would consider that the same as my returning empty handed," he answered.

For a long moment, the two stood toe to toe, staring each other down; long enough that Lark began to worry. Then, surprisingly, Lamiya backed off, scowling. "Take her, then. But don't bother dropping her on my doorstep again when your little domestic issues are cleared up."

"Don't worry. We won't," he answered, dropping his hand and walking back to his sky ride.

Lark turned to Lamiya. "Thank you," she told her, "for everything. I learned much."

Lamiya's nod was curt, her expression softening only marginally as she looked at her. "You were a good pupil. I could have taught you much more."

Lark shrugged regretfully, and turned away, walking after Dark Ace. Once she had climbed onto the Switchblade, he wasted no time revving up the engines and taking off. Once they were out of visual range of the terra, he flipped on his radio. Obviously in a lighter mood now that Mire was behind him, he said, "Come out, come out wherever you are, Captain."

Almost immediately, a Destroyer dropped down out of a layer of thick cloud cover ahead, its hangar doors opening to grant them entrance. He flew in, and once he had secured his Switchblade, led her to her temporary quarters.

"What was all that about back there?" she asked as they walked.

He gave her a sidelong look, silent, and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer. "She has a reputation for getting," here he paused, as if searching for the right words, "a little too attached to people who dare set foot on Terra Mire. Quite literally," he said, more quietly.

"What?"

"Many people who land on Terra Mire never leave."

Lark thought of all Lamiya had taught her, and frowned as the meaning behind Dark Ace's words sunk in. "And grandfather was worried that I would be one of those?"

Again, Dark Ace was silent. Finally, he said, "I don't think so. He knows how to handle her."

Lark wasn't entirely convinced. She suspected it was a calculated risk that he was willing to take. She thought she should feel something at that, but she didn't. Frowning pensively, she changed the subject, "You promised to tell me about what has been happening."

"Bluster, Nimbus, and Squall have broken away from the Empire. Master Cyclonis has suspected this might happen for some time, now."

"I don't understand. Why would they do that?"

"Ambition."

"What's greater than being a part of the Cyclonian Empire?"

"Ruling your own empire," Dark Ace answered simply.

"What has grandfather done about this?"

"As of yet, nothing. They declared their independence only yesterday. He's waiting for you to return home safely, before calling the council to convene. So far, neither side has taken any hostile action. It's a precarious situation. If Master Cyclonis does nothing, it sends the wrong message to the rest of the empire. Gives them ideas. If he declares war, then the rest of Atmos could find ways to use the conflict to their advantage."

"What do you think he'll do?"

Dark Ace didn't hesitate. "I think he'll call for war."

"I do, too."


	9. The Battle of Terra Gale

The sight of three Destroyers being prepped for takeoff met them upon their return to Cyclonia, an air of organized chaos permeating the cavernous hangar bays as soldiers hurried through their preflight checks. Dark Ace snagged a Talon by the back of his collar as he ran by, pulling him up short. "Report, Lieutenant."

"Sir! Terra Gale is under attack! Governor Plovers has requested assistance."

Dark Ace released him and hurried to the throne room with Lark, where they met a dour Master Cyclonis.

"It seems the Triumvirate has made my decision for me," Tanager said, after a perfunctory greeting.

"Is that what they're calling themselves?"

"Despite it being clear that Boreal is the one pulling the strings, yes," Tanager said dismissively, before continuing. "They're targeting our factories on Gale. What's more, the Rebel Ducks are taking this opportunity to stir up trouble, and even that crackpot hermit has joined the fray."

Dark Ace smiled darkly. "It sounds as though someone needs to go and remind everyone of who Terra Gale really belongs to."

"In no uncertain terms," Tanager agreed.

"I will see it done." Still smiling at the prospect of a decent fight, Dark Ace turned and headed back to the Destroyers.

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"I trust you found your time on Terra Mire to be educational," Tanager said, turning towards Lark once Dark Ace had left the room.

"I did," she answered simply, looking up at him, and for the first time noticing how old he looked. She had not seen him in so long; and her new sight gave her a deeper understanding of the people and objects around her. She could sense the strain her grandfather was putting on himself in his attempt to appear more vital than he actually was. It was writ in the tight lines of his face, in the concentration of energy around his shoulders as he forced himself to stand ramrod straight.

Her new awareness of his condition must have shown, because his mouth thinned, and he turned away from her, staring out the window. Not for a moment did he let his façade slip, despite the fact that there was no one left in the room to impress. It was not his way.

"I regret your training with Lamiya was cut short."

"It was enough."

"I hope that proves true."

"It will," she answered forcefully, feeling a sudden stab of resentment towards the man in front of her.

He looked at her, then, raising an eyebrow at her tone. His lips twitched, the barest of movements, as if finding a smile too foreign an expression to even form, let alone maintain. The attempt did nothing to quell her anger at his doubt.

"If you don't mind, I'll be in the crystal lab," she said, not wanting to be in the same room with him right at that moment.

"By all means," he granted, sweeping a hand towards the door.

She nodded, and walked out without another word.

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Pandemonium reigned in the skies above Terra Gale.

Upon spying the Cyclonian Destroyers, the Triumvirate ships had broken off their bombardment of the Gale factories and opened fire. The Destroyers responded in kind, and the fight for Gale was on.

Dark Ace led a squadron through the corridors of The Swooping Hawk, on their way to the cargo bay and the sky rides within. The ship shuddered with each hit it took, making the attempt difficult. One particularly large blast sent half the squad sprawling, but they scrambled quickly to their feet and ran on.

Once their rides had been retrieved, Dark Ace punched in the code to open the bay doors, and they flew out into the open sky in a tight, disciplined formation. Talon squadrons from the other Destroyers were riding out, as well, and soon the Triumvirate sent their own squadrons out to play.

They raced towards each other, two groups flying in the same formations, wearing nearly the same uniforms. The one great difference was the new Triumvirate shield: a purple talon clutching three lightning bolts. Almost as one, the two groups scrambled, each pilot choosing their target.

Two Triumvirate soldiers flew towards Dark Ace. He drew his blade, activating its energy field. The two young soldiers, close enough now to clearly see whom they were bearing down on, glanced at each other, their eyes wide. Quickly, they turned their Switchblades and gunned their engines, fleeing the battle. Laughing, Dark Ace followed.

The two led him on a merry chase, zigzagging through the air in an unsuccessful attempt to lose him. They dove down through a pocket of heavy cloud cover, and he followed. Almost immediately, an unnaturally strong wind hit him, making it hard to control his ride. The two soldiers ahead of him were having an even more difficult time. One lost control of his ride completely, veering into his compatriot. They both went spiraling down towards the Wastelands.

Squinting, Dark Ace could make out a figure on a small patch of terra below. It had one arm raised towards him while the other pulled the lever on a catapult. He dodged, and what looked like an old engine zoomed past his head, missing him by mere inches. With a growl, he dove. His target turned out to be a man in ridiculous makeshift armor, whose voice carried well on the wind as he shouted up at the sky. "Keep killing each other, you dogs! Cyclonia's war will be Gale's freedom!"

Dark Ace lashed out with his sword, a move that would have separated the man's foolish head from his body had he not had the sense to throw himself flat. A crystal went flying from his hand at the impact, and the wind let up.

"Grandpapa!" a young voice yelled, as a girl no older than Lark ran out of the small house to check on the man. With a more warlike yell, she threw a crystal at Dark Ace. But he was moving too fast. It missed him, exploding harmlessly in the air where he had been. He kept moving. He had more important things to deal with.

Rejoining the main fight, he slashed his way downward, towards the fortress. Radio contact with Plovers and the ground forces had been cut off by the Triumvirate bombardment before the reinforcements had ever reached Gale. He'd have to go to them, if they wanted to coordinate their attack.

As he got closer to the ground, he had a good view of the damage that had been done. Factories lie in ruin. The fortress had a large hole ripped in its side, through which many of the factory workers were making their escape, helped along by one of the more dangerous escapees, the Sky Knight of the Rebel Ducks. Elsewhere, part of the roof had caved in. Much of their air defense had been destroyed, the operators of the few remaining cannons fired blindly at anything that moved in the sky.

As he watched, another member of the Rebel Ducks flew towards one of the cannons on a stolen Cyclonian sky ride. He dodged the blasts aimed at him and got close enough to toss a red crystal down the muzzle. The cannon exploded, sending its Talon operator flying. He hit the ground, not moving.

The Rebel Duck flew on, targeting another operational cannon, and Dark Ace went after him. Charging up for his signature move, he aimed the blast at the stolen vehicle. The engine suffered a direct hit, and the rider was thrown off, rolling as he hit the ground and grabbing an abandoned energy staff as he came to his feet. With a wordless battle cry, he charged towards the nearby cannon. The operator, seeing him coming, panicked and ran.

Dark Ace sheathed his blade and retracted the wings of his sky ride, passing the Rebel Duck and jumping off of his Switchblade near the fleeing operator. It came to a skidding halt nearby as Dark Ace ran after the Talon. He caught him in a few steps, spinning him around and punching him in the face. The startled man staggered back with a cry, hands flying up to cover his nose. "Get back to your post, soldier!" Dark Ace commanded. "And if anything happens to my ride, I'm holding you personally responsible."

Without waiting to see if the Talon complied, he turned. He drew his blade once more as he charged towards the Rebel Duck, who had yet to reach the cannon. They arrived at their destination at the same time. The other man raised his staff, ready to strike at the cannon. But Dark Ace blocked the blow. Before the other man could react, Dark Ace kicked him, hard. The man doubled over, the air driven from his lungs, his grip on the staff loosening. In one fluid motion, Dark Ace sheathed his blade and grabbed the staff, jerking it away from the man. He dealt him a sharp blow to the head, knocking him unconscious. Handing the staff to the bloody-faced Talon, who had indeed returned to his cannon, he grabbed his Switchblade. He turned it towards the fortress and sped off, nearly running down several fleeing prisoners in the process.

He drove into the fortress itself. There was little point to civility, now, with the place coming down around their ears. Time was of the essence. He found Plovers in the command center of the fortress. A portly, aging man, he was screaming at one of his underlings to get the radios fixed.

When he looked up and saw him, his expression seemed to freeze somewhere between relief and fear. "The Dark Ace!" he said, voice strangled. "Have you got them on the run?"

A sudden, shuddering boom answered the question far better than Dark Ace could have. At least one of the Triumvirate ships had begun firing upon the terra, once more.

'_-irate De…oy…falling ba…'_ came over the radio of Dark Ace's Switchblade. He went over and adjusted the frequency. _'Repeat, Triumvirate Destroyers falling back. Disengage.'_

A few more explosions sounded, parting gifts from the Triumvirate forces. But after a few moments, there was silence.

"We won?" Plovers asked.

"Hardly," Dark Ace answered sourly. "They accomplished what they came here to do. Time to clean up the mess."

He revved his engines and left Plovers and his staff behind. Another portion of the ceiling had caved in, blocking him from leaving the way he had entered. He had to pick his way through debris-covered halls, looking for another exit.

Once outside, he surveyed the damage. Fires raged everywhere. Smoke choked the already polluted air. A trio of smokestacks stood testament to the survival of a single factory. The rest had been reduced to rubble. It was a wonder that parts of the fortress had remained standing, at all.

A Destroyer had landed, and Talons were rounding up prisoners and forcing them into the ships. Some would be relocated to other prisons and factories throughout Cyclonian territory. Others would be held until it was time to rebuild. Those who weren't part of the prisoner roundup were organizing themselves into firefighting groups.

It was going to be a very long night.

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Author's Note: First off, I'm sorry I didn't get this chapter out a little sooner. Action is hard for me, so fight scenes take me forever to write. Next chapter should be relatively peaceful, but then I have another fight planned for the chapter after that, so we'll see how things go.

Also, yes, this was an extremely Lark light chapter. I dunno what happened. I had thought her scene would be longer, but then she up and stormed out of the room. There was nothing I could do. Kids. Oi. I promise she'll be featured prominently in the next chapter. ;-)


	10. An Ounce of Blood

Early projections had the war ending in as little as two months.

A year after the attack on Gale, the end was nowhere in sight.

Terra Zephyr broke away from the Empire in the wake of the strike on Gale. Joining the Triumvirate, it led an attack against its neighbor, Terra Salvo, capturing it and its extensive striker crystal mines.

Cyclonia had responded with heavy blockades. Destroyers patrolled major trade routes to Triumvirate terras, confiscating goods before ordering supply ships to turn back. When smaller blockade runners began trying to sneak their way past, the Empire captured the ships and conscripted their crews.

A Triumvirate task force had been formed to launch an attack against Terra Glockenchime, hoping to disrupt the Timepulse and bring the blockade ships down. Cyclonian spies had caught wind of the plot, and anonymously alerted Atmosia of the imminent attack. The attempt was repelled, and the incident proved to be a major blow to the Triumvirate, who had been working hard to prey upon the sympathies of the free Atmosians. Noticeably fewer blockade runners had been seen after the failed plan.

Skirmishes became more commonplace as the war dragged on, and the Triumvirate eventually succeeded in breaking the blockade.

When Cyclonian scouts intercepted an incriminating message from Boreal to Acorus, the governor of Terra Kalamos, Tanager had ordered the letter be laced with a potent, skin permeating toxin. The captured Triumvirate messenger, unaware of what had been done, had been forced to deliver it under the watchful eye of a disguised Talon. Both the messenger and Acorus were dead by the next morning. Public outrage at the Triumvirate's treachery swept through the terra, and a new governor, a staunch supporter of Master Cyclonis, was chosen. The threat of Kalamos splitting from the Empire was averted, as was the danger such a split would have posed to Kalamos' nearest neighbor, Terra Zartacla.

It was that event which led to Lark being stuck on some backwater terra.

The people of Kalamos may have been fooled by Cyclonis' ploy, but Boreal had not. Reports from multiple sources suggested that he was planning to strike back at Tanager on a personal level. Acorus had been a cousin of Boreal's, and if there was one thing he considered sacred, it was family. And so Tanager had sent Lark, under the protection of Dark Ace, to Terra Hazen, another neighbor of Kalamos. After they were gone, he let it be known that he had sent her back to Terra Mire.

It didn't matter to Lark where she was sent, be it Mire, Hazen, or Bluster itself. She was not happy about being away from Cyclonia, again. In the last few months, her grandfather had begun asking her opinion on small political matters. If her advice made sense to him, he'd take what she said into consideration when making his decisions. If it did not, he'd talk her through the situation until she understood where she had faltered in her judgment. If she didn't agree with his assessment, he'd indulge her arguments, and they'd eventually agree to disagree. It allowed her to spend more time with him than ever before, and while she still did not feel close to him, and possibly never would, it did at least make her feel valued.

But now, that had been taken away from her.

"Doncha like it here?" asked Innes, the eight-year-old son of Augusta Rae, Hazen's governor and their hostess. It was her second day there, and he was leading her along his favorite path around the family manor. Dark Ace shadowed them as they walked.

"It's beautiful," she offered. And it was. In the morning, the haze that gave the terra its name would reflect the sunlight, bathing the land in a golden glow that would slowly fade as the moisture evaporated, revealing a brilliant blue sky. The grounds of the manor were meticulously groomed, all lush lawns, rose gardens, and magnolia groves. Compared to the harsh barrenness of Cyclonia, or the strangled overgrowth of Mire, Hazen was a paradise. Under different circumstances, she might actually have appreciated the beauty and hospitality the terra offered.

"You seem sad," he said.

Her expression hardened as she frowned at him, "I'm not."

"Mama says it's okay to feel sad, sometimes."

Lark cast a glance back towards the manor, where Augusta Rae watched them from the shade of the porch. A tall, aristocratic woman, she was dressed head to toe in black, in honor of her husband, who had been killed in a pitched battle for the Terra Tundras last month. Lark thought it rather callous of her grandfather to impose upon the woman so soon after her loss, but Augusta had insisted that it was no trouble at all.

"I'm not," she repeated, with considerably less venom than before. "You have more reason to be sad than I do."

Innes shrugged uncomfortably, a shadow passing across his features as he looked thoughtfully down at his feet. "My father was a hero, and I'm fixin' to be just like him when I'm older," he said finally, a note of resolve entering his soft drawl as he raised his eyes to hers. Before she could respond, he returned to his earlier train of thought. "It doesn't bother you? Being away from home and all your friends?"

"Home is wherever the Cyclonian banner flies," she answered loftily, regal gravitas serving as a shield to her true feelings. The ploy seemed to work. Innes looked at her admiringly, and it seemed as if he finally remembered with whom he was speaking, because the annoying questions stopped. They walked in silence, which allowed her time to brood in peace.

Her ire at the situation was exacerbated by the fact that she had no idea how long she would be expected to remain away from Cyclonia. Would it be a week? A month? Could the Triumvirate actually win the war? That would mean permanent exile. Or worse.

No. She couldn't allow herself those thoughts. Cyclonia was superior. The Triumvirate would fall. It was only a matter of time.

But the fact remained that time spent on Hazen was time wasted. Her grandfather had been providing her with invaluable experience in the ruling of an empire. Experience she suspected she'd need sooner rather than later, that could not be gained here. She had worked too hard to let inexperience be Cyclonia's downfall. She would find a way to learn all that she needed to know. The Empire would not lack for a competent ruler. Not if she could help it.

She tried to push her doubts aside, but that only made her mind wander to the second part of Innes' question. Did it bother her to be away from her friends? She frowned. Friends were a distraction and a liability. She had a friend, once, before her father had died. She had vague memories of being inseparable from Myna, the daughter of Terra Tempesta's governor, when Imperial Council business brought them to Cyclonia.

Her grandfather had put a swift end to that after naming her as his new heir apparent. She had no time for such nonsense, he had said, and he had been right. She was far too busy to maintain friendships, busy enough that she normally never dwelled on what she was missing. Until something, or someone, reminded her. She glared at Innes, who had gotten too far ahead of her to notice. Dark Ace, on the other hand, did.

"Perhaps we should get in some training before it gets any warmer," he suggested, which did get Innes' attention.

"Reckon I could join you?" he asked, nearly bouncing up and down in excitement at the thought of receiving some training from _the_ Dark Ace.

"Not this time," Dark Ace answered, and the boy seemed to wilt. Lark felt a stab of satisfaction at his disappointment.

Innes excused himself, and continued down the path, while Lark and Dark Ace squared off against each other. Dark Ace drew his blade, while Lark extended her staff, arming it with its crystal.

"Something's bothering you," he said, instead of attacking.

"No," she lied, aiming a blast of energy at his chest. He batted it away with a casual swing of his sword.

"Really?" He sounded skeptical. "Because if you need to talk…." He was cut off by her next attack, a downward strike meant to crack his skull. He blocked, and grinned at her. "That works, too," he said, pushing her back.

All of her anger and frustration roiled to the surface as she pressed her attack. She had made several major alterations to her staff after returning from Mire, but she made use of none of them during the fight. This wasn't about fancy moves or crystal mastery. Each inarticulate shout and wild swing was cathartic. Dark Ace calmly stood his ground, blocking each blow. She would have felt horrible, later, had she actually managed to hit him, but she never did. As efficient a fighter as he was, her uncoordinated attacks weren't a threat to him. If she had been thinking rationally, he might have had cause to worry, but she wasn't, and he knew it.

After a while, her attacks slowed, and finally stopped. She leaned on her staff, forehead pressed against the cool metal, eyes closed as she focused on her breathing.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"A little," she answered. Her arms ached from exertion, and she was tired, but she no longer felt so angry.

He said no more on the matter, for which she was grateful. Instead, he gave her a moment to pull herself back together, and then said, "I seem to recall telling you that I'd teach you how to fly when you returned from Mire. But with the war, I haven't had the opportunity to make good on that promise."

She looked up at him with a faint, anticipatory smile. "I thought we'd start tomorrow," he finished.

"Really?"

"Absolutely."


	11. Mercy Upon My Enemies

Dark Ace subdued a grin as he watched Lark dubiously eye the Switchblade. It was an old model, stripped down to the basics. Intact, rust free, with a matte black paint job that had suffered only a few dings and scrapes, it still managed to give off the faint air of having lived past its time.

When she approached the vehicle and experimentally kicked its front tire, he laughed.

She gave him a look that demanded he explain.

"It's a Talon Switchblade XS," he said. "And what you'll be learning on."

"What's wrong with your Elite?"

"The XS is lighter and more maneuverable. It will be a better fit for you."

She gave the sky ride one last suspicious look over before taking a seat. Taking a helmet from where it had been hanging from the handlebars, he placed it on her head. "Until you get the hang of this," he explained, before sitting behind her and pointing to one of the controls. "What is this?"

"The ignition."

He nodded, and continued to quiz her, smiling slightly as she answered each of his questions correctly. He had taught her this only once, and that was several years ago. He had not expected her to remember it all. But then, he shouldn't have been surprised. Her memory was phenomenal.

"Start her up."

She flipped the fuel and ignition switches on, pulled the enriching level, and kick–started the engine. The sky ride roared to life. "Perfect," he said. "Now, you see that tree with the broken branch?" He pointed to a spot not far from where they sat. She nodded. "Take us there."

She was a bit heavy handed with the accelerator, and the bike lurched forward.

"Slowly!"

She braked, bringing the bike to a screeching halt.

"Good first effort," he claimed diplomatically. "Let's try again."

They spend the rest of the afternoon tooling around the terra. Hazen was an ideal place to learn riding, with wide, straight roads running through miles of flat farmland.

"Do the flying lessons begin tomorrow?" she asked jokingly, once they had returned to the manor for the evening.

"I don't think I'm quite ready for that," he smirked.

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Dark Ace woke her up particularly early one morning, saying that he wanted her to learn how to fly in pre-dawn light.

Riding had become an integral part of their daily routine. Lark had picked up on the basics quickly, and Dark Ace had moved on to teaching her how to fly. After a few months, he had deemed her capable enough to ride on her own, provided he was at her wing during the flight.

They walked together to the small carriage house where they kept their sky rides. The interior was lit with crystal lamps, illuminating the sky rides within. In one corner stood the Heli-Blade that had belonged to Augusta Rae's husband. Innes had taken it upon himself to tend to the bike as if it were sacred, which, to him, it probably was. He had refused to let his mother store it away.

Near the wide double doors stood Dark Ace's Switchblade Elite. Next to it, where she had left the Switchblade XS the day before, was a new sky ride. It was similar to the XS, but sleeker, and was painted a metallic black trimmed with indigo.

She looked questioningly at Dark Ace, who stood with his arms crossed, smiling. He gave a quick rundown of the Switchblade's features: extra-light custom frame; bronze absorption panels for superior defense against attacks; crystal energy triggered wings; dual Nimbus 7 series engines for stealth; and a ball-joint articulation between the wheels for easier handling while in bike mode.

"Happy birthday."

Lark didn't know what to say. Her grandfather never went out of his way to celebrate special occasions, and from what she remembered, her father hadn't differed much from Tanager in that regard. Birthdays had always been a quiet, austere affair.

Dark Ace, however, never failed to remember her birthday, and had always tried to make each one special. Which struck her as odd, now that she thought about it. It certainly went beyond what his duties required of him. The Switchblade went far beyond.

She had a bad feeling about this.

"This is far too generous a gift," she said.

He shrugged, as if it were nothing. "Your parents would have wanted you to have a decent sky ride. They both loved flying."

Those words merely reinforced her feelings, and she took a step back. Dark Ace frowned, obviously not expecting her reaction. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, unconvincingly.

He gave her a look that clearly said he did not believe her, and waited.

"Typhon wasn't my father, was he?" she finally blurted, deciding it would be better to confront her suspicions, rather than run from them.

Dark Ace arched one eyebrow in confusion. "What?"

"Typhon. He wasn't my father."

Enough history had been pounded into her head for her to know that such things happened. Perhaps her mother had had an affair, and had passed her child off as Typhon's. Or perhaps she had learned that Typhon couldn't have children, but had needed to produce an heir, and was willing to do so through whatever means necessary….

"I can assure you that, to the best of my knowledge, he was your father," Dark Ace said, as more paranoid conspiracy theories ran through her mind.

"Then why do I resemble you more than I do him?" she accused.

For a moment, Dark Ace stood in shocked silence.

"You think I'm your father?"

"Are you?"

"No!"

"Are you certain?"

"Quite."

She looked him in the eye, trying to discern the truth from their depths. "You're hiding something."

He sighed, gazing up at the ceiling as if expecting divine intervention to save him from her curiosity. When none was forthcoming, he looked back at her. "I did love your mother," he said. Ignoring the small sound of dismay that escaped her, he went on. "But not in the way you think. She was my sister."

Lark was at once relieved and bewildered by the revelation. "Why have you never told me this?"

"I don't like being reminded."

Typhon had done his best to erase all traces of Kestrel from the fortress after her death. Lark had never seen so much as a picture of her own mother. Now, it appeared as if Dark Ace had played a role in that decision. Good. He could help to undo some of that damage, then.

"Do I remind you of her?"

"In some ways, you do," he said, with a sad smile. "But you are very much your own person. You always have been."

She walked over to her new Switchblade, sitting sideways on the seat. She wasn't truly angry that he had lied. After thinking, however briefly, that he and her mother had betrayed her father, it was difficult to feel any ill will towards him after learning the far more innocuous truth. But he did owe her answers, and whether he liked it or not, she would have them. "What was she like? Tell me about her."

For a moment, his expression closed off, as if he meant to refuse. But then he, too, sat, and began to speak.

"When I was seven, our mother died of Sonnorian fever. Our father commanded a squadron of Talons, and his duties often required him to be away. Kestrel was only a few years older than me, but…."

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Lark sat in the shade of a mulberry tree, writing an essay in which she had to identify at least five factors that led to the downfall of Parulo IV, one of the most malign Master Cyclonis' in history, and detail what she would do to avoid similar pitfalls. Her grandfather had seen to it that, while she may be away from Cyclonia and her tutors, she still received occasional assignments from them.

Nearby, Dark Ace was in the middle of a floryshe, blade cutting gracefully through the air as he struck down imaginary foes.

They had ridden out past the outermost farms, into the woodlands at the edge of the terra. It was cool there, and quiet, except for the irritable tapping of pen against paper as she idly skimmed through the pages of her history book. "Do you think murdering his own daughter's father-in-law, out of sheer paranoia, contributed to his assassination in any way?" she asked, with a hint of sarcasm. "The man had been his top commander."

"No, not at all," he answered without breaking his stride, matching her tone. "Is he the one whose life could have been saved, if it wasn't for the fact that his bodyguards had served under the commander, and merely stood by and watched as he was stabbed?"

"Yes," she answered.

"I think, in that situation, you…."

He cut off abruptly, holding up a hand for silence. His gaze swept upward, scanning the sky through the trees. She looked up in time to see several sky rides pass overhead, flying low and quiet. The lack of any squadron shield fooled neither her, nor the Dark Ace. An unmarked Switchblade in Cyclonian air space could only mean one thing.

As they watched, the sky rides dipped lower, apparently intending to land somewhere between them and the populated area of the terra. "Did they see us?" she whispered. Dark Ace shook his head slightly. He didn't know.

"Stay behind me," he said quietly. "If they see me, run. Go back to the manor, and warn Augusta."

She nodded, and followed as he made his way stealthily through the forest. They left their Switchblade's behind. They had no idea how close the Triumvirate soldiers were, and did not want Dark Ace's engine to betray their presence.

After a tense quarter of an hour picking their way carefully through the underbrush, they heard voices. Using a large tree for cover, they peeked around the trunk, and found five men in a small clearing, a map stretched out between them.

"We're here," one said with certainty, pointing to a spot on the map, which earned a shake of the head from another.

Lark frowned. They were lost? She glanced at Dark Ace to see his reaction, but his gaze remained fixed on the one who had spoken.

"This is Kalamos," the head shaker argued.

"It doesn't really matter whether it's Kalamos or Hazen," the first speaker said, in the condescending tone of one speaking to a small child. "Either way, we need to ride northwest to get out of Cyclonian territory."

"Hey!"

The shout came from her left, and she met the eyes of a sixth soldier, who unsheathed his daggers upon discovering them. Dark Ace drew his sword and stepped out of the cover of the trees, drawing all eyes to him.

The men drew their weapons, as well, but stayed where they were, giving Dark Ace time to smirk at the one who had correctly identified the terra. "Well, well, well. A Sky Knight turned Triumvirate stooge? I didn't think you could get any more pathetic, Jay, but you proved me wrong."

Jay shrugged, activating his sword's energy field. "Working for Lord Boreal gives me a chance to pay you back for what you did to my squad," he said coldly.

"Really?" Dark Ace struck quickly, a sharp thrust aimed at Jay's chest, which the former Sky Knight parried. "Because I thought you were trying to skulk back to the Triumvirate without being noticed by us."

Lark took a few steps backwards, but as soon as she moved, she attracted the attention of the two nearest soldiers. Jay, whose attention had been focused solely on Dark Ace, looked towards the disturbance, and she had a brief glimpse of his face brightening before she turned and ran.

"Is that who I think it is? This day keeps getting better!" she heard him say triumphantly. "You four keep our friend, here, busy. Verdin, come with me. We're getting that kid!"

Dark Ace must have put up more of a fight than Jay expected, because they did not give chase immediately. But soon enough she heard the telltale sound of two sky rides in bike mode, coming up fast. She jumped, grabbing onto a low branch and scrambled up the tree, hiding amongst the leaves while she listened to her heart pound unnaturally loud in her ears. Looking down, she could see Jay and Verdin speed past her. Once they were gone, she dropped back down to the ground, and detoured off to the side, intending to circle around to her Switchblade.

Soon, however, she could hear Jay. He must have realized that she couldn't have gotten far on foot, and was staked out somewhere nearby. "If I was a little lark," he called out mockingly, "where would I lurk?"

She crept towards the sound of his voice. Drawing her staff, she held it like a mace rather than extending it. She wanted to be ready to run, again, and a staff didn't lend itself well to quick getaways. The weapon would work, regardless. Its core was now studded with dozens of tiny crystals. Using what she learned on Mire, she could manipulate the energy within each of them, transferring their properties to the staff's main crystals. Whatever she needed the crystal affixed to the end of her staff to be, she could make it become.

She could see them up ahead. Jay sat on his Switchblade, still yelling out his taunting little remarks. Verdin, the soldier who had originally discovered them, had his daggers out, and was systematically slashing at bushes and other likely hiding spots. She aimed at Verdin, charging her staff with a striker crystal. The blast hit him squarely in the chest, throwing him backwards. He hit a nearby tree with a sickening crack, and crumpled to the ground.

Jay was off his bike with his sword drawn in an instant. She aimed a blast at him, but he deflected it, retaliating with his Sky Knight move. She was able to shield herself from the attack, but it obliterated the shrubbery she was using for cover.

"Ah, there you are," he smirked. "Lord Boreal has been very interested in learning your whereabouts. He was not a happy man when he learned you weren't on Terra Mire. We had to find that out the hard way. But it wasn't a total loss; we made the witch pay for her lack of cooperation." 

She sent another blast at him, this time with an icer crystal, and again he batted it away. Laughing, he said, "Surrender, and I'll give you a choice. I'm not completely heartless, you see. You can die here, quickly, or I can hand you over to Lord Boreal. I'm not sure what he has planned for you, but my guess would be that it involves a slow, painful death."

"I don't find either option appealing, actually, but thanks for the offer," she said, her gaze dropping to one of Verdin's daggers. Rising into the air, the dagger shot towards Jay, embedding itself in his shoulder. He clutched the hilt, cursing in pain and surprise, and she bolted.

"Slow and painful it is, you brat!" he yelled after her.

It took Jay a dishearteningly short amount of time to pull the dagger from his shoulder and come after her once more. Verdin's striker crystal must have cauterized the wound, erasing the need for him to staunch the flow of blood, and denying her precious time she could have used to get away. She should have thought to deactivate the crystal before she stabbed him.

She could see her Switchblade up ahead. Behind her, Jay fired off a few wild shots, his sword now armed with a stunner crystal. Apparently he was serious about taking her to Boreal alive. She reached her bike and hopped on, turning towards the edge of the terra and speeding off, carefully staying clear of the trees.

She swerved to avoid another shot by Jay, who laughed. "I've been a Sky Knight longer than you've been alive. You can't seriously think you'll outrun me."

Self-recriminating thoughts ran through her mind at his words. Jay had been the greater threat, she should have attacked him first, not Verdin. Better yet, she should have teleported back to the manor at the first sign of trouble. Dark Ace had bought her enough time to do so, but the thought hadn't even occurred to her. Her tutors had long touted her as a genius. Some genius. She had thrown away every chance she had of ending this easily, and now found herself at a significant disadvantage to Jay. And they both knew it.

Driving off the edge of the terra, her Switchblade converted automatically, wings unfolding. She turned in a wide arc as she gained altitude, heading back towards the heart of the terra. An energy blast from Jay hit her wing, but thanks to the absorption panels, the damage was minimal.

He flew up alongside her. Before she could break away, he had leapt from his Switchblade, to hers. A vicious kick knocked her out of her seat, and onto the wing. Pinning her down with one foot planted on her collarbone, he raised his sword. Grabbing her staff from its place at her belt, she jabbed upward, into his injured shoulder. He recoiled, and she pushed herself up, crouching on the wing. The wing was narrow, the wind rushing by threatened to knock her off balance, and she was acutely aware of the fact that no one was actually flying the Switchblade. She was quickly developing a whole new level of respect for Dark Ace, who made this look effortless. Across from her, standing at full height on the opposite wing, Jay looked right at home, as well.

Reaching into her pocket, her hand closed around her first creation. She rarely went anywhere without that crystal, but had never had any real opportunity to use it. Now was her chance. As Jay charged up for another burst of his signature move, she leveled the crystal at him. A red, talon-like beam of energy snatched him up, and pushed him away from her sky ride, before letting go of him. Slipping the crystal back into her pocket, she returned to the relative security of her seat. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Jay clinging to the wing of his sky ride, looking a bit worse for wear after having taken the brunt of his own attack, thanks to the crystal's containment field. She gunned the engines, hoping to put some distance between them before he recovered.

She wondered where Dark Ace was. Should it be taking him this long to fight off those soldiers? It felt as if she'd been running from Jay for hours, though she knew intellectually that it hadn't been anywhere near that long. Still, those four couldn't possibly have posed a serious threat to him, so where was he?

Her Switchblade shuddered, and she looked over to see her left engine sputter and die, victim of a direct hit from Jay, who was once again in close pursuit. As he took aim at the other engine, she dove, deciding the prudent thing to do would be to land, rather than allow herself to be shot out of the sky. The Switchblade transformed into bike mode as sensors detected the ground within range, but when she turned towards civilization, Jay landed in front of her, blocking her path. She had to turn to avoid hitting him. His sky ride was larger and heavier; in a collision, there was no doubt his would fare far better. She tried to get back on course, but he stuck close to her side, driving her back toward the outskirts of the terra.

"You better be worth all this trouble," he threatened through gritted teeth. Abruptly, he swerved towards her. She veered away to avoid being hit, and found herself on a collision course with a tree. She swerved again, but her front wheel caught on a large root, and she was thrown from her bike. He skidded to a halt nearby, raising his sword, and firing at her. She tried to put up a shield to disperse the energy strike, but was only partially successful. The stunner blast didn't knock her unconscious, but an unpleasant numbness spread through her as she was hit. She tried to retrieve her crystal from her pocket with deadened fingers as he advanced. But she was too slow. By the time she began to raise it towards him, he was already there, kicking it out of her hand. She reached for her staff, but he took it from her. With his good arm, he yanked her up by the front of her shirt. "I offered you a good deal, you should have taken it. Now, though, I think I'll actually enjoy watching you suffer."

She dug her heels in as he dragged her back to his sky ride, trying to buy herself enough time to pull off one last-ditch escape effort. As fast as she could, she began to overload the crystals in her staff, which Jay still held in his other hand. Soon, a nimbus of crackling electricity surrounded the staff. His grip on her slackened as he noticed the change, and she jerked out of his grasp, stumbling backwards and flinging up her arms for protection as the staff exploded in Jay's face.

She was knocked back by the blast, and for a minute she just lay there, looking up at the sky. Some of the numbness from the stunner still lingered, and she felt a bit groggy. She thought she might have hit her head at some point, either when she was thrown off her sky ride, or from the explosion. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, and looked over at Jay. He lay still. She wasn't sure if he was unconscious, or dead. As the numbness began to wear off, other pains were making themselves known. She tentatively felt the back of her head. It definitely hurt, but her hand came away clean, so it must not be too bad. Her hands and wrists stung, and sported several angry red blotches, but they didn't look serious, either. She was certain she'd discover some bruising later, but all in all, she seemed to be relatively unscathed, physically. Standing, she cautiously walked over towards Jay. She grabbed his sword, just in case, leaving her ruined staff behind as she went to search for her fallen crystal.

As she searched through the thick layer of dead leaves littering the ground, she heard an engine coming near. Activating Jay's energy sword, she held it defensively, waiting. Soon, Dark Ace emerged from deeper within the forest. He looked pale and drawn, and for a split second, his sneer told her that all he saw was Jay's sword. But then he looked at her, and his relief was almost palpable. She was relieved, too, at seeing him.

Then his gaze swept over to Jay, and his face darkened. "The others have been taken care of," he reported, as he walked over to the ex-Sky Knight's prone form.

"What about Verdin?"

"The soldier who left with this one? I saw him when I went looking for you. You killed him." He sounded proud.

He prodded Jay roughly with the toe of his boot, eliciting a groan from the man. Apparently, he was still alive. Dark Ace's grin at the discovery was a terrible thing, filled with unbridled malice. Looking him over, he placed his foot almost gently upon Jay's injured shoulder, before shifting most of his weight to that leg. Jay awoke with a shriek.

"Hello, again," Dark Ace said, smiling down at him as he drew his sword and held it to Jay's throat.

"Please," Jay gasped. "I…I surrender."

"You're speaking to the wrong person," Dark Ace said. "What happens to you is not my decision to make."

Jay looked over at her. "Please," he repeated, his voice flat and hopeless.

The adrenaline had drained away; leaving a hollowness within her that anger and disgust were all too happy to fill as she listened to him dare ask her for mercy. "I'm not completely heartless," she heard herself say, turning away so that she didn't have to look at him anymore. "Make it quick, Dark Ace."

"As you command."


	12. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Word of the incident was sent to Tanager, and despite the lack of survivors to carry Lark's location back to Boreal, they were recalled to Cyclonia the next day.

Surprisingly, Tanager was waiting for them in the hangar bay when they arrived. "It is time we deal with Boreal once and for all," he said without preamble, turning towards the door before Lark and Dark Ace had even fully disembarked from the carrier ship. "Walk with me."

The three of them walked together through the winding halls as Tanager outlined his plan. "There is considerable risk involved," he said once his explanation was complete, before pausing to clear his throat. "But I am confident that it will succeed." He cleared his throat again. It sounded harsh and painful. "Go assemble your team, Dark Ace."

Dark Ace bowed and left to do as he was bidden, while Tanager led Lark to his private apartments. Once the wide door was shut behind them, he began to cough, a deep rattling sound. In between the coughing fits, he removed a thin chain from around his neck, screwing off the cap of the narrow cylinder that hung from it. Dumping its contents into the nearest waste bin, he retrieved a small containment bottle from a pocket and plucked out a few tiny, light blue crystals. Dropping them into the cylinder, he replaced the cap and settled the chain around his neck once more. He took a few deep breaths, drawing the crystal's energy into his lungs, and the cough quieted. Tucking the crystals out of sight, he took a seat on one of the burgundy chairs set before the massive fireplace. Lark took the other.

They were in his library, the most extensive in all of Cyclonia. Accessible only to the Imperial family, it contained many volumes that were banned throughout the Empire, as well as an impressive collection of books considered taboo all over Atmos. Bookcases were built into the walls, arching over doorways, and flanking the fireplace. Candelabra book-ended the mantle above the fireplace, which held several framed pictures. Above the mantle hung a large painting of a younger Tanager, his late wife, and a four-year-old Typhon. Portrait-Tanager's gaze surveyed the room critically, a brilliant blue that contrasted sharply with his dark hair. Phoebe looked every bit the part of an emperor's consort. Pale and flawless, with her blonde hair gathered up in an elaborate style, her own blue eyes held the same imperious expression as Tanager's. Typhon had inherited his mother's coloring, and was peering out of the painting with a serious expression, though he was still too young to have adopted the practiced arrogance his parents had mastered.

"We don't have much time," Tanager said. Lark looked away from the painting, and over at her grandfather. His hair may be grayer, but his gaze was as sharp as ever as it met hers. "It is not my wish for you to inherit this war."

Lark frowned. For him to admit that time was running short worried her, though she did not say so.

"You believe this will end it?"

"No. But it is a start. When Dark Ace returns, I request your formal presence in the throne room," he said, as if his plan's success was assured.

She nodded, and the room fell silent. Tanager picked up a book from a side table, and after a few minutes, Lark stood. She had never been comfortable sitting idle for very long. Tanager glanced up from his page, briefly, before returning to his reading, making it clear that it didn't matter to him whether she stayed or not.

She left.

Walking to her rooms, she noticed an envelope leaning against her door. It bore her name, written in Dark Ace's hand. She picked it up and broke the seal, carefully removing the photograph within.

Smiling up at her was a young woman whose resemblance to Dark Ace was undeniable. Raven black hair was swept up in a messy knot that Lark was certain her grandmother, with her meticulously coiffed hair, would have disapproved of. She was slender, with high cheekbones, and her smile bordered on mischievous, though her red eyes held a sadness and maturity that nearly ruined the otherwise casual effect. Lark flipped the photo over, reading the brief inscription on the back. _Kestrel – Aged 17._

Lark glanced up and down the abandoned hallway, as if expecting to see Dark Ace standing nearby, watching her. She wondered why he hadn't waited to give the photograph to her in person, before realizing that he must believe there was a chance that he would never get the opportunity to do so.

She stared down at the photograph of the mother she had never known. She thought of Dark Ace, who at that moment was preparing for what could easily amount to a suicide mission, and of her grandfather, who was finding it more and more difficult each day to mask his increasingly ill health.

They couldn't leave her alone. She wasn't ready.

Her grip tightened briefly, crinkling the photo. She forced herself to relax, smoothing out the picture as best she could before tucking it away.

Her mind wandered back to that day on Hazen, when she had sworn that she would never let herself be unprepared to rule Cyclonia. She had thought about that promise a great deal since then, and all her musings led back to the one person she knew who might be able to make that promise a reality: Lamiya. But then Jay had come along, bragging that the Triumvirate had made her 'pay' for defying them. That was impossible, had to be impossible. Lamiya had always been quite proud of the control she had over Mire, so certain that no one could threaten her. With the possible exception of Tanager, Lark conceded. But the Triumvirate? Never.

But the melancholy that had settled over her at the thought of losing Dark Ace and her grandfather reached out to encompass Lamiya in its dark grasp, and Lark suddenly felt the need to know if she, and the possible aid she represented, had been lost. Resolutely, she headed towards the hangar bays.

Turning a corner, she nearly ran into a Talon carrying a small crystal containment box. He bowed, stammering an apology. "Is that the cloaking crystal being delivered to Master Cyclonis?" she asked, thinking of the plan her grandfather and Dark Ace had discussed. Cloaking crystals were typically the result of unusual structural abnormalities within shielding crystals, making them very rare, and highly prized. Two had been found in a new mine on Tundra I, a nearly unheard of occurrence, and had been delivered along with several crates of shielding crystals that day. Her grandfather had claimed that the serendipitous discovery was a good omen.

He nodded in confirmation. "I'll take it to him," she offered, holding out a hand.

The Talon handed the box over to her unquestioningly. Once he was out of sight, she continued on to where the captured blockade-runners from earlier in the war were being held.

She swept by two Talons on her way inside, ignoring their carefully polite questioning about why she was there.

"Your Highness," began one, as they approached and bowed as one. "No one is supposed to be in here."

"I need that ship," she said simply, pointing out a small ship from Terra Aquanos. "It won't be gone long."

The two exchanged glances. The one who had spoken first stared at his comrade, as if expecting him to speak next. When it became clear that he wasn't going to, he frowned at him and looked back at Lark.

"Do you require a pilot?"

The question, she knew, was his circumspect way of pointing out that she was several years too young to possess a valid pilot's license.

"That won't be necessary."

"Um…." The Talon glanced at his compatriot once more, but the other man insisted on being of no help whatsoever.

"Is that a problem?" she asked in as dangerous a tone as she could muster. She must have done a fairly good job of it, because he began backpedaling immediately, assuring her that it was no problem at all. "Because if it is," she continued mercilessly, "you can check with Master Cyclonis on the matter. You know how much he enjoys being bothered with trivial matters."

The two backed off, insisting that such measures would be unnecessary. With a nod, she entered the ship, leaving the baffled Talons behind.

Studying the helm, she decided that the controls didn't look too complicated. Switching the circuit breaker levers to on, she pushed a likely looking button, and the ship obediently hummed to life. She then proceeded to the shield generator, replacing its current power source with the cloaking crystal, and activated the shields.

The Talons outside watched as the ship shimmered and disappeared.

Walking back to the helm, she eased the ship forward, hoping that she wouldn't bring her quest to a swift and humiliating end by crashing. She cleared the other ships, and the hangar doors, exhaling the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Once into the open air, she consulted the navigation charts and set a course for Terra Mire.

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The Cyclonian Destroyer crossed into Triumvirate airspace, flanked by two frigates. They were immediately engaged by Triumvirate patrollers, while a third frigate, concealed with a cloaking crystal, flew right by, leaving the battle behind them.

Dark Ace sat with the blueprints of Boreal's fortress spread out on the table before him. His team was assembled on the other side of the table, peering down at the schemes as he outlined the plan one last time. They all wore Triumvirate uniforms.

"Is everyone clear on this? There are no second chances, here."

They nodded, and he waved them away, rolling up the blueprints. Standing, he walked over to the window, leaning against it as he watched the skies.

Soon, they would be on Terra Bluster.

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The moment she stepped off of the ship, she felt the disconcerting sensation of being watched. She had set the aquatic ship down with a grace that made her glad she was landing on water instead of solid ground, and pulled it up alongside the wooden dock outside of Lamiya's house.

Nearby, the top of a Triumvirate carrier ship was visible above the murky water it had crashed into, while the mangled remnants of more than one sky ride littered the causeway. The swamp had swallowed up everything else.

Everything, that is, except the grisly remains of Lamiya.

Slumped against the railing, she was riddled with several arrows that, from the mess, seem to have been armed with eruption stones. Lark looked away quickly, vision blurring as tears welled up in her eyes, only to be blinked back before they could fall. Giving the body a wide berth, she walked to the door, stepping inside.

The house stood undisturbed by the carnage that had taken place outside. The contrast heightened the feeling of wrongness, of being watched, and she shivered, despite the warmth from the furnace crystals that still burned in the fireplace. On the table stood a half finished cup of tea, and a piece of paper.

She picked up the cup, intending to move it to the sink, and dropped it in surprise. Hot tea sprayed across the floor as the cup shattered. She reached for her staff, only to realize that she hadn't had a chance to replace it, yet, before freezing, listening for any sign that someone had heard the commotion. She heard nothing. If anyone was there, and the heated tea suggested that someone was, they weren't showing themselves. She glanced at the paper. It was a letter, and it was for her. Frowning, she picked it up, and began to read.

_Lark,_

_I believe I made it clear when you left that our paths as mentor and pupil would not cross again. I have nothing more to teach you. _

_I feel safe in assuming that it was Tanager who led trouble to my doorstep. He should have known better. I don't appreciate being dragged into the middle of such mundane disputes. My loyalty to the Cyclonis line was born and maintained out of mutual esteem. I will not be treated like a pawn. _

_I regret that you have wasted a trip, but I must ask you to leave. Respect my wishes, and perhaps someday when you have your own heir, you may find an ally here willing to train him._

- _Lamiya_

Lark crumpled up the letter, tossing it into the fireplace and watching it burn to ash. She then searched the entire house for its occupant, without success. Frustrated, Lark began riffling through Lamiya's books. She refused to believe that she could learn nothing more from the woman.

She searched until well after dark, and was about to give up, when she came across an old, hand written journal. She slowly flipped through the pages, and her breath caught as she realized that she had found what she had been looking for.

Taking the journal with her, she went back to her ship.

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Two Triumvirate soldiers walked down the hallway, on their way to the midnight changing of the guard outside of Boreal's personal chambers. They never made it that far. Knocked out from behind, they were quickly bound, gagged, and dragged into a nearby supply closet. Their assailants closed the door quietly behind them, and continued on their way.

Approaching Boreal's door, they saluted the other guards, relieving them of duty. Then they waited. If all had gone according to plan, the same flawless transition had happened at three other doorways throughout the fortress. They'd know soon enough.

Long minutes passed before Dark Ace appeared, face concealed behind a full helmet. He pulled out a grenade studded with stunner crystals, triggered it, and nodded. One of the Talons opened the door, and Dark Ace tossed the weapon inside.

There was a flash of red light, and the three Cyclonians slipped silently into the room.

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Author's Note: Alright, so here's the deal. As this story draws closer to its end, I find myself thinking more and more about what I'm going to write next. What I came up with was a (short?), Dark Ace centered prequel to this story. My original thought was, 'Hmm, maybe I'll write it, maybe I won't. I'm not sure, yet.' And then I saw that new opener that they apparently have in England. Well, let me tell you, I was quite dismayed! I'm not sure if y'all have seen it or not. I'm betting most of you have heard about it by now. And if you have, then I'm sure you know from reading this fic that that was not what I had in mind, at all! For about two seconds, all I could think was, 'My prequel to my prequel! It's ruined! Ruined!' It was very melodramatic, I can assure you. Full on wailing and gnashing of teeth, with ashes and sackcloth and everything. I went all out. But then I decided that this was the perfect time for me to write my Dark Ace prequel, if only to make sense of this world that has suddenly gone mad. I could work with this, I told myself. It's okay. All is not lost.

Now I know what you all must be thinking by now. Where do you fit into all of this? Well, gentle reader, I shall tell you. I need a name for Dark Ace. Y'know, back before he was Dark Ace, 'cause I'm pretty sure that ain't the name his mama gave him. I am having a ridiculously difficult time coming up with anything I like, so I'm opening the matter up to the floor. PM me with any suggestions you have. Or you could try to send me your suggestions telepathically, but there's no guarantee I'll get it, and even less of a guarantee that I'll be able to credit you for it. So it's not recommended. Anyway, your help in this would be greatly appreciated. Peace and love, yo.


	13. The Head of the Snake

The first Talon through the door was halfway across the room before he suddenly stopped, grunting in surprise. Dark Ace and the other Talon took a step back as the tip of a spear emerged from the unfortunate Cyclonian's back.

The lights came on.

"Cowards! Traitors! Your lives are forfeit!"

Boreal crossed the distance between them in a few long strides, yanking the spear free. The Talon slumped to the ground. "Clever, boys. It would have been even cleverer to check if I was in the room, first."

Dark Ace glanced over Boreal's shoulder, at the door leading to what looked to be a small study. It stood ajar. His jaw clenched in annoyance. Looking back at Boreal, he saw that the other man was focused on him. "Remove your helmet. I want to see the face of my betrayer."

"The only traitor here is you," Dark Ace answered scornfully, drawing his sword.

Boreal laughed. "Dark Ace, I should have known. Only you could be so arrogant that you'd botch such a simple assassination plot."

Dark Ace removed the helmet and threw it aside, fixing Boreal with a blood red glare. "If Master Cyclonis wanted you dead, rest assured, you would be."

"Kidnapped, then?" Boreal's smile was humorless. "So he can see me humbled and at his mercy? I refuse to give him the satisfaction."

"I don't believe I offered you a choice."

"No? I could kill you. That seems like a rather appealing choice, to me."

"Are you going to stand here and prattle on all night?" Dark Ace asked, affecting boredom.

"I didn't know you were in such a hurry to die."

Boreal stepped forward, quick and aggressive, slashing at Dark Ace, who dodged the attack while activating his sword. The second Talon, who had been standing next to Dark Ace while awaiting his orders, was not so lucky. His staff clattered to the ground as he stumbled back, clutching his ruined throat.

Dark Ace went on the offensive, pushing Boreal back with a series of forceful strikes. Raising his blade above his head, he slashed downward, hoping to finish him, only to have his attack blocked. Boreal smirked, disarming Dark Ace with a twist of his spear.

The blade went sliding across the floor.

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Lark walked down the hall, on her way to her rooms. Lamiya's journal had been hidden amongst her own notes and logs in the crystal lab; the cloaking crystal was safely tucked away in her pocket.

She could see light shining out from under her doorway as she approached. The sentry stationed there explained that Master Cyclonis was waiting for her. She frowned. Opening the door, she quickly replaced the frown with an innocent smile.

"Hello, Grandfather," she greeted him.

"Where have you been?" he asked, not returning the greeting.

"I've been studying crystals," she lied easily. "I must have lost track of time."

"Cloaking crystals?" He held out a hand, and she dug the crystal out of her pocket, handing it over.

"I know, I should have asked you, first," she apologized. "But I've never gotten the chance to see one up close, before."

"Where have you really been?"

"I told you. I…."

"The crystal lab was the first place I checked for you. Try again."

She sighed, dropping into the chair opposite his. Her entire plan hinged on her performance, here. She looked away. "Terra Mire."

She could hear his frown as he spoke. "Why?"

"I was worried about Lamiya, after what Jay said." She looked back at him, gauging his reaction. His frown relaxed, but did not disappear entirely.

"And?"

"They killed her," she said, her voice breaking in a way that, while not planned, added credence to her words. She may not believe that Lamiya was really gone, but she couldn't get the gruesome image of her death out of her head.

Her grandfather seemed convinced, if not pleased. "You realize that you put your own life at risk by leaving Cyclonia, alone no less?"

"Yes," she answered, dropping her eyes to the ground. "I tried to be careful. That's why I needed the cloaking crystal."

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "And that by doing so, you risked not only yourself, but the future of the Cyclonian Empire?"

She nodded.

"Then you had the gall to try and lie to me about it? A ridiculous lie, at that!"

She looked up, then, her mouth twitching slightly. "Shall I fetch the whipping boy?"

He snorted.

"No," he said, sparing the imaginary child. "But you are banned from the crystal lab for the next two weeks."

"What? I just got back!"

Terra Hazen was not known for its groundbreaking crystal research, and she had missed the work. She was also unsure how long it would take her to decipher Lamiya's notes, let alone work out the alterations that would be needed to make her plan succeed.

"You'll survive," he said unsympathetically, standing. "It's late. Get some sleep."

She watched him go.

That had gone well, she decided. The punishment was a setback, but she had managed to keep her true motivation for the Mire visit a secret. She had no choice. She couldn't guarantee that her grandfather would cooperate with her plan. He would have to be kept in the dark until it was too late to stop her.

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Dark Ace grabbed the spear, and the two men struggled, each trying to disarm the other. Boreal was the larger of the two, more muscular, and he used that to his advantage. He jerked the spear violently to and fro, trying to shake Dark Ace loose.

Dark Ace held on, letting go only when Boreal swung him close enough to a side table to grab a silver candlestick. He threw it at his opponent. Boreal ducked to the side, but it was not enough to spare him completely. The candlestick dealt him a glancing blow to the head, and he reeled back, giving Dark Ace time to retrieve his blade.

The two circled each other, both keeping their distance as they looked for a weakness to exploit. Boreal was the first to act. As his circuit brought him near the bed, he ripped a panel from the canopy curtains, using it as a makeshift net. Keeping hold of one end, he threw it towards Dark Ace, trying to ensnare him. Dark Ace evaded the first attempt, but the second came close enough that he was forced to slash at the fabric to avoid becoming entangled. The blade cut easily through the curtain, but the hilt caught and snagged. It was the opening Boreal needed. With one sharp tug, he staggered Dark Ace.

He raised his spear, ready to strike, but Dark Ace recovered in time to throw himself forward, rolling under the attack and driving his sword through Boreal's chest. Boreal looked surprised for a moment, and then he laughed.

"As I said. Won't give…Tanager…."

The rest came out as an inarticulate gurgle as Dark Ace twisted the blade.

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Lark studied the three people assembled before the empty throne dispassionately. Each had a Talon standing behind them, weapons at the ready. They radiated tension. The very air was charged with it. Off to one side, Dark Ace stood, arms crossed, watching the trio.

The doors opened, and her grandfather walked in. As he made his way to his throne, the three seemed to tense even further. He sat, looking down at them with the grave air of one who has taken on the role of judge, jury, and executioner. The effect was enhanced by his ornate battle-axe, gleaming in the light from its place of prominence on the wall behind him.

He let the silence stretch, a calculated move, until it was broken by an involuntary whimper from one of the captives, the young man on the left.

Her grandfather looked over to Dark Ace. "Boreal elected not to join us?" he asked, as if inquiring after a guest who had failed to appear for tea.

"Boreal is dead, Master."

Lark watched their reactions. The young man looked miserable, as if he might cry. Next to him, his sister just looked angry. To their right, Boreal's widow showed no reaction at all. Her grandfather seemed unconcerned at the news. "The fate of all traitors," he said, fixing the three with a pointed look. The young man's knees began to wobble.

"Perhaps their lives could be spared," Lark suggested, playing her part. "If they were to swear to serve Cyclonia, and help us end this war."

Her grandfather nodded. "Perhaps," he agreed, looking to Boreal's widow. "Sora? Help us, and your children will have bright futures ahead of them."

Sora looked over at her children, and seemed to consider the offer. They had known that she would. Boreal's fate had been sealed from the start. If Dark Ace had not killed him, then her grandfather would have. Boreal would never have agreed to back down, no matter the cost. It was Sora's support that they needed for this, and her cooperation could be obtained through her children, not her husband. According to her grandfather, their marriage had been a sham for years. Boreal's death might even help to sway her to their side.

"What would you have us do?"

"First, you must take control of Terra Bluster. Once you're established, then we turn our attention to Nimbus. Eider remains heirless?"

Sora nodded.

"Perfect," her grandfather smiled. He could be quite charming when the situation called for it. "Ravess would make an excellent governor for Nimbus, wouldn't you agree?"

Sora smiled at her daughter, "I do."

Lark looked over at Dark Ace, who grinned at her. Everything was falling into place perfectly. If all went according to plan, Terras Bluster, Nimbus, and Squall would be back under Cyclonian control before Lark became Master Cyclonis; governed by three people whose lives had been spared by her benevolent suggestion. She would welcome them into her innermost circle, where she could keep her friends close, and her enemies closer.

She smiled back at Dark Ace, the smile taking on a ruthless edge as she turned her attention back to the trio, who were nodding along as her grandfather explained his plans for them.


	14. An End to the War

Author's Note: First off, I'd like to thank all the people who have read, and reviewed. We've got some new faces! Which is always good to see. Plus, this last chapter garnered more reviews than any previous chapter! Hurray!

Second, I'm sorry it's taken so long to update. I had a plot bunny sneak up behind me, and throw me into a stranglehold! It threatened me and demanded I begin writing it immediately! There was nothing I could do! It wouldn't let me return to _From the Ashes_ until I had written three chapters for it. It was terrifying. I'm lucky to have survived. I'm not sure if I'll ever post it. I'll need to write more of it before I decide. It's certainly nothing I expected I'd write. So, we'll see how it goes, I guess. Alien territory and all that. But rest assured, finishing this story is my top priority. Only two more chapters to go.

(Starts feeling some separation anxiety)

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"In a way, it's better that Boreal is out of the picture. I'm sorry if that sounds insensitive, but he never could see the forest for the trees."

"I know you never cared for him in life, Eider, but the least you could do is not speak ill of him now that he's dead," Sora frowned, taking a sip of her wine.

"You're shaking." He sounded chagrined. "I'm sorry, you're right. I'm not trying to upset you." She set her glass down, folding her hands in her lap to still them, and he continued. "What I'm trying to say is that this has gone on long enough. Emus is in agreement. We need to strike at Cyclonia, itself."

She raised an eyebrow, "Now?"

"As far as I'm concerned, we should have done it months ago, rather than waste time and resources chipping away at the rest of the Empire."

"We gained much in the process."

"Now you sound like Boreal. Have you been out to some of the terras we've won from Cyclonia? Reconstruction is going to be a nightmare for whichever side emerges victorious in this war."

"Are you beginning to doubt our ability to win?" She tried to keep the hope out of her voice.

His face hardened, taking her words as an insult. He drained his own cup, before shaking his head. "It's three against one. We'll win." Setting the cup aside, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk and hanging his head with a sigh.

"Are you well?"

"Just tired."

"Should I leave so that you may retire for the night?"

He raised his head, meeting her gaze with unfocused eyes. "No. No, we need to finish this conversation. Emus expects a consensus to be reached, soon." He sounded out of breath as he spoke, his words slurred. "What do you think? Should…" He paused, putting a hand to his chest. "I'm sorry. I…what do you…."

She flinched as he slumped forward. Standing, she walked around to his side of the desk, checking for a pulse, and finding none. She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He had been a good man, and a good brother, but she had to look out for the best interests of her children.

Shutting the door behind her as she left, she told the guard, "Lord Eider will be working late, and does not wish to be disturbed." The guard nodded, and she walked back to her ship.

As her pilot flew her home to Bluster, she threw both the venom crystal she had smuggled into the Nimbus fortress, and the shielding crystal that had protected her from its effects, into the Wastelands. With the crystal out of range of Eider, his blood chemistry would revert back to normal, leaving no signs that he had been poisoned. When they found his body the next day, all evidence would suggest that he had died of heart failure. No one would be able to prove that his death had been anything more than a terrible tragedy.

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Emus cornered her after the funeral.

"Congratulations," he smirked. She frowned. She had never liked Emus. He was a wiry, rat-faced little man who considered himself far cleverer than he actually was.

"I beg your pardon?"

"First your husband is assassinated by his own guards, and then, little more than a month later, your brother dies of a weak heart. And you get Bluster _and_ Nimbus out of the deal."

"Are you insinuating something, Emus?"

"It's convenient, that's all."

Sora drew herself up indignantly. "Eider's ashes aren't even cold, yet, and you dare to accuse me?" she raged at him. "I loved them!"

Her anger gave him pause, and he ducked his head in appeasement, the weak-willed fool. "Then prove it. Honor their memories by finishing what they started. Marshal your troops. We'll hit Cyclonia with everything we've got!"

She nodded slowly. "It's what they would have wanted," she agreed.

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Deep in the bowels of the Cyclonian citadel, in an unused, unguarded section of the dungeons, a circle of shielding crystals cast an eerie pinkish glow over the three inhabitants of the small, unlocked cell.

Two cages were set across from each other within the circle. One contained a gleep, and the other a tove. The tove growled low in its throat, throwing its small body against the bars as it lunged at the gleep, which huddled as far from the other creature as possible, shivering. In the center of the circle sat a sable crystal, the product of an oblivion and transformation crystal.

Lark sat outside the circle, Lamiya's journal open in front of her. She concentrated, activating the crystal. It began to glow faintly. Pointing her newly rebuilt staff at the tove, she fired. It yelped as the striker blast hit it, and collapsed. As its life drained away, the crystal drew its energy towards it. When the first tendril touched the crystal, there was an unearthly howl. Black sparks of electricity licked across the stream of energy connecting the crystal to the dying tove. When it reached the creature, the tove blinked out of existence, leaving its empty cage behind.

The gleep squeaked and shrank back even further.

Lark slammed the journal shut. Deactivating the crystal, she stepped into the circle and picked it up. "Useless," she muttered. "You're just a glorified oblivion crystal." She pointed it at the gleep, firing. It, too, disappeared.

She'd made no progress in her quest, and it was starting to grate. Perhaps the modifications she needed to make simply could not be done, and she was just wasting her time. Discouraged, she walked back to the upper levels of the fortress.

She was halfway to the crystal lab when the alarm sounded. She ran the rest of the way to the throne room. Once there, she found her grandfather standing in front of the large window, arms crossed casually across his chest, a small smile on his face.

"Our triumph is at hand," he told her, nodding out the window as she came to stand next to him.

Off in the distance, a huge invasion force was approaching the fortress. It was a daunting sight. If she hadn't been aware of the plan, she would have thought it was over for them. It still could be over, if Sora betrayed them. She didn't know how her grandfather could smile, knowing that their survival hinged upon the cooperation of a woman who had so easily changed sides not once, but twice, already.

Cyclonian forces were amassing, holding position as they waited for the invaders to come closer. Once the Triumvirate ships were in range, the Cyclonians opened fire.

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On board the Triumvirate flagship, holding back from the main battle, Sora and Emus stood watching the spectacle playing out before them. Emus' grin grew larger every time he caught sight of a Cyclonian Switchblade being shot down, or a Destroyer taking a serious hit. Sora smiled, for a very different reason.

Bluster's forces were very slowly falling to the back of the invasion force, while Nimbus' were congregating off to the sides, along the outer fringes of the battle. Squall's fighters were being surrounded right under Emus' nose, and he took no notice.

Once her soldiers were in position, she walked over to the helm, and blew the ship's horn. Emus turned to her, frowning in confusion, "What'd you do that for?" Without waiting for her response, he turned back towards the battle in time to see her soldiers turn against his.

Ravess and Snipe entered the bridge, summoned by the call to action. They flanked the door, weapons at the ready, as Emus wheeled on Sora, hatred and rage twisting his features. "I knew you couldn't be trusted!" he spat.

"Surrender, Emus," Sora said calmly. "It's over."

In response, he drew a narrow, archaic dagger from his boot, and let it fly. She heard the twang of Ravess' bow, saw Emus fall as an arrow pierced his heart. But it was too late. The dagger had embedded itself in Sora's throat. She clutched the hilt, staggering back. Snipe caught her, easing her down to the ground, as Ravess grabbed the med kit from the wall and ran over.

She knew it was hopeless. Fire spread through her veins. The blade had been poisoned. Perhaps Emus had been cleverer than she gave him credit for. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Her vision was going black around the edges. She reached out, taking one of their hands in each of hers. She gave a weak squeeze, as if to tell them that everything was going to be okay, that they would do well. And then everything went dark.

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Dark Ace's eyes gleamed as his blade cleaved through the wings of one of the Triumvirate Switchblades, sending the sky ride spiraling. It crashed into the side of the terra, bursting into flame.

He leapt from his Switchblade, onto another, throwing the rider into open air, before aiming the vehicle at another. He jumped back to his own seat as the two Triumvirate Switchblade's collided.

He moved on to his next target. He felt cold, focused. He did not feel the thrill of battle, the bloodthirsty desire to crush an opponent, as he normally did. The outcome was decided. This would be the end of the war. Cyclonia would win. There was no doubt, no sport.

His job was to cut through as many Triumvirate soldiers as he could before the end, to protect Cyclonia from those unlucky few who still believed that they could actually bring the Empire down.

He pulled up alongside a Heli-Blade, taking a stab at its pilot. The young man veered to the side. "Sir! I'm one of Sora's men! We're on the same si-." Dark Ace's blade removed the boy's head, stilling his obnoxious tongue. As far as he was concerned, until the signal was given, they were still enemies. The fool should have been in position, instead of flying out amongst the fray.

He flew on, slicing through the parachute cords of an unseated Triumvirate soldier before taking aim at another.

The sound of a ship's horn cut through the air, sounding loud and clear over the confusion of the battle. He pulled his Switchblade up short, hovering in midair as he watched the Nimbus and Bluster chapters fall upon their Squall brethren like wolves.

The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips for the first time since joining the battle. He hadn't witnessed such a spectacular bloodbath in years.

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Dark Ace marched through the throne room doors, flanked by Ravess and Snipe. He stopped a respectful distance from Master Cyclonis and Lark, bowing, and felt the other two do the same.

"Well?" Master Cyclonis asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew what Dark Ace would say.

"Emus and Sora are dead, Master. There are very few Triumvirate survivors. Their highest ranking officer was quick to offer Squall's surrender."

"Excellent news," Cyclonis said. "Except, of course, for Sora. A grievous loss. I am sorry," he said with all due sympathy, as he met the eye of first Ravess, and then Snipe. They murmured their appreciation of his acknowledgment.

"It throws a bit of a wrench in these proceedings. The treaty was drawn up with the assumption that Sora would govern Bluster," Cyclonis continued. "But now it seems that other arrangements must be made."

Cyclonis paused for only a moment, studying the two young soldiers who stood to either side of Dark Ace. "Ravess, you'll take over Bluster," he dictated. "Snipe, Nimbus. Which leaves only Squall without a governor. Our first order of business, then, is to assign one."


	15. Messiah Complex

Lark sat on one of Cyclonia's outermost peaks, feet dangling over the edge as she looked off into the distance. She imagined that she could see all the kingdoms of Atmos, each an insignificant speck blighting the skies. They were waiting for her to make them a part of something greater, to give them meaning. And she would. She would reunite them all under the Cyclonian banner, creating a legacy of peace and prosperity that would be passed on to her children, and her children's children.

Her introspection was broken by the sound of someone humming off-key. As her vision of a glorious future faded, she recognized the tune. The short song drew to a close, and was followed by slow, mocking applause, each clap ringing out unnaturally loud in the still air. She stood, and turned, only to find that she was alone.

"Thirteen. And still not prepared for what lies ahead, are you?"

That voice was familiar. She tensed, her hands involuntarily clenching into fists at the sound, though she could not name to whom the voice belonged. She turned in a slow circle, trying to locate the speaker.

"Show yourself!" she commanded, but the voice only laughed.

"Do you want to know what the future really holds for Cyclonia?" the voice asked. "I can show you."

Before she could answer, there was a deep rumbling, and the ground began to shake. The edges of the peak crumbled, and she had to jump to solider ground to avoid falling. She ran to her Switchblade as the ground cracked and split under her feet, and flew off. She glanced behind her, watching as the peak collapsed, disappearing under the clouds.

Reaching the next peak, she landed. But as soon as she touched down, a fresh wave of tremors hit, forcing her to fly on, drawing nearer to Cyclonia's center. She set the Switchblade down, and the ground held. She watched as the second peak crumbled like the first.

"What have you done?"

The voice was cold, accusing, and she had no trouble recognizing it. She turned her head, and found herself staring into the icy blue eyes of her grandfather.

"I haven't done anything!"

"You're destroying everything I built," he hissed, raising his axe. She sped off as the axe came down. It split the ground as it struck, creating cracks that raced across the land, tearing it asunder. Her bike fell through one of the rifts, and she plummeted. Proximity alarms sounded, overriding the Switchblade's crystal triggering system. The sides of the narrow ravine would tear off the wings if they were activated, so she was forced to freefall until she cleared the bottom of the terra. Once into the open, the Switchblade transformed, and she pulled up.

She flew back up to the surface, flinging out a hand to her grandfather. "Come on!" He swung the axe at her again, and she dodged, coming back around. "Come with me, or you'll die," she told him.

"I'd rather die, than watch Cyclonia fall."

"It won't!"

"Look around you. It already is!"

The ground gave a deep groan, and collapsed. Her grandfather fell without making another sound. She dove, flying down below the clouds, frantically searching. But he was already gone.

Another alarm sounded. She was getting low on fuel. She pulled up and landed very near the central peak, getting off the bike. The fortress loomed nearby, stabbing up into the sky. Lightning flashed, striking the tower, causing sparks to fall around the citadel like dying fireworks.

"I didn't know."

She spun around. There, leaning against the ruined remains of a Switchblade Elite, was her father. She drew back, confused. This shouldn't be happening. This wasn't right.

"I didn't know what ruin my spawn would visit upon Cyclonia. Everything you touch turns to dust." He reached forward, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Everything." His hand turned to stone. The stone crept up his arm, spreading until he was completely transformed. He disintegrated; leaving nothing but dust that blew away on the wind.

There was laughter, then, from the same disembodied voice as before. It set her teeth on edge. "What a glorious mess, little larky." She frowned. She remembered the owner of that voice, now. As if remembering gave him form, Jay coalesced out of the air in front of her.

"You're supposed to be dead."

He smirked. "Doesn't matter."

"No? In that case, I'll just have to kill you again," she said, with more confidence than she felt as she extended her staff. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in his dead eyes. She could see shades of her grandfather, and Dark Ace, in her grim, resolute expression. They were two of the strongest people she had ever known, and the resemblance strengthened her nerve. She swung, a brutal blow that should have split Jay's skull. It went through him as if he wasn't even there, and he laughed.

"You're forgetting something. You didn't kill me. Dark Ace did."

"On my orders."

"Yeah. Well, you know what they say about people who give orders they aren't willing to carry out themselves. It's the mark of a poor leader." She struck again, but her staff disappeared before it could touch him, leaving her defenseless. He drew his sword, then, lashing out at her. She felt the searing heat of the blade rip through her, heard herself scream as she fell. She looked down at herself, expecting to see a terrible, bloody mess, but found no visible wound. She looked back up into Jay's smirking face, confused, and he raised his blade again. She scrambled backwards, getting to her feet and running. His jeering laughter followed her, echoing through the air.

She retreated to her Switchblade and moved on, the sky ride running on fumes. She managed to make it to the main peak of Cyclonia, and landed outside the fortress. As she dismounted, she looked back to see the rest of Cyclonia fall apart. She told herself that this was a nightmare, and willed herself to wake up, to no avail.

Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she looked and saw Dark Ace. He was walking towards the arena. She yelled out his name, but he didn't seem to hear. She followed him.

When she entered the arena, Dark Ace was gone. In his place, she found Lamiya.

"This is a dream. You aren't real."

"Are you certain of that?" Lamiya asked.

"Yes," she answered quickly, before frowning at the woman suspiciously. "No."

Lamiya chuckled. "Don't look at me like that. I have no control over your subconscious."

"So this is a dream?"

Lamiya looked at her with all the contempt she had shown her that first day on Terra Mire. "Do you often speak with the deceased while you are awake?"

"No."

"There's your answer, then."

"Are you here to tell me that I'm destined to destroy Cyclonia, too?" she asked bitterly.

"I can only venture a guess and say no. I'm probably here because you believe that I hold the answers you seek."

"You can tell me how to stop this from happening?"

"Lark, no one can tell you what will, or will not happen. The future is a difficult thing to predict. Some say impossible. But I know what you _believe_ will help you. And maybe that's enough."

"What?"

Lamiya swept a hand towards the center of the arena. Lark looked where she pointed. Floating in the middle of the arena was a crystal. It was silvery, with a strange, pearlescent sheen she had never seen in a crystal, before. She took a step towards it.

"The real Lamiya would tell you that what you have planned is unnecessary, that you are quite capable of succeeding on your own. I feel it's only fitting that I should hand out the same advice." Lark ignored her, and took another step forward. Lamiya sighed. "In that case, I suggest you hurry."

As she said that, the ground began to shake. Violent tremors rocked the fortress, and it began to collapse in on itself. Great blocks of stone rained down as the walls of the arena shook apart. Lark ran. She dove for the crystal. Her hand closed around it, and then she was falling….

Lark awoke with a gasp as she hit the ground. She had somehow managed to get tangled up in her blanket, and had fallen out of bed. Grumbling, she fought to untangle herself, and stood. A foolish thought made her search through the blanket. No crystal. She hadn't really expected to find one, but it hadn't hurt to look, she reasoned.

She sat on the edge of her bed and focused on the last part of her dream. In the past weeks, she had hit a proverbial brick wall. She had run out of ideas, and had nearly given up hope of ever unlocking the secrets of Lamiya's journal. Now, though, as she concentrated on remembering that dream, it was as if a floodgate had opened. One crystal combination in particular stood at the forefront of her mind, and she wondered why she had never tried it before. It seemed so obvious.

Standing, she dressed for the day, and headed for the crystal lab. It was still early, but she didn't want to wait until morning and risk losing her newfound inspiration.

She began to pick out the crystals she would need. Searching through the bins, she picked out a transformation crystal, and a shielding crystal. She placed both into the Allocater. Now came the difficult part. The third crystal she needed wasn't common. The pragmatic Widgeon might not have one in stock. She wished she had thought of it when she had visited Mire. Relegated as they were to the realm of soothsayers, Lamiya would probably have found it amusing to keep a revenant stone around, whether she had a practical use for it or not.

She turned the lab inside out trying to find one, but it was as she suspected. Widgeon did not have any. Disappointed, she cleaned up the lab, and went for a walk. The sky was beginning to lighten, and so she left the confines of the fortress, and soon found herself at the arena. She went in, and found Dark Ace sitting alone in the center of the sand circle, eyes closed, as if in meditation. She leaned against the wall, not wanting to disturb him. After a few more moments, he stood and drew his sword, flowing into a high-guard stance. He turned, sweeping the blade downward. As he did so, he caught sight of her, and paused. Sheathing the blade, he walked over to her. "You're up early."

"I couldn't sleep."

He smirked, "Couldn't sleep? You're a teenager, now. You should have enough stamina to sleep all day, if you had to. But, since you're here, I might as well give this to you, now." He handed her a small, wrapped box. "It isn't quite up to the standard I set last year, but I saw it, and I thought you might like it. Something to add to your collection, at least."

She unwrapped the package, opened the box, and felt her heart stop for a beat or two. Inside was a flawless revenant stone. She looked up at him in surprise, and he shrugged, "A fortuneteller on Saharr was going out of business. She sold it to me. I doubt you'll be holding many séances, so you probably won't get any use out of it, but…."

"It's perfect," she told him honestly.

"I'm glad you like it."

Eager to return to her experiment now that she had all the components she needed, she said, "I didn't mean to intrude. I'll let you get back to what you were doing."

"You're welcome to join me."

She shook her head, "No, thank you." He bowed, and she walked back to the lab. Had it not been for the fact that she had stopped believing in coincidences long since, this day would have made her a firm believer in the idea that everything happened for a reason. She fed the crystals back into the Allocater, and flipped it on, watching it work. When the monitors showed that the shell had absorbed the maximum allotted energy, she turned the machine off and carefully took the new crystal from the docking port. She held it up to the light, turning it this way and that as she watched its silver surface shimmer with the same pearly luster the crystal in her dream had possessed.

Now, all that remained to do was to test it.

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It had been months since the war had ended, and the full extent of the damage was still being assessed. Terra Zephyr, which had broken away from the Cyclonian Empire and allied itself with the Triumvirate, turned coat once more in the wake of the treaty signing. It had petitioned for acceptance into the Atmosian Coalition, and had been accepted, taking Terra Salvo, along with several other terras that it had won in the war, with it. The Sky Knight Council had already sent a squadron to serve as their protectors.

There seemed to be a general consensus of opinion throughout Atmos. The civil war had crippled Cyclonia. Both sides had hit mining terras especially hard during the war. Some of the mines had been destroyed. Many others had been shut down, and would not be reopened until they met safety code regulations. Factories, too, had been prized targets, and would need to be rebuilt. It would be a time-consuming and costly process. The Empire would be too busy cleaning house to pose a serious threat to the rest of Atmos for some time to come.

Tanager leaned back in his throne, listening as Ravess gave her latest reconstruction report. She would pause occasionally to cast nervous glances up at him. His hood was pulled far forward, casting his face entirely in shadow, and making his expression impossible to read. He had taken to attending every audience cloaked and hooded, recently. Not because of the intimidation factor, though that was certainly an amusing side effect, but because his cyanosis had progressed to a point where some of his more tactless commanders were beginning to inquire about his health in earnest.

When Ravess had completed her report, he dutifully pledged to do everything in his power to see that Bluster received the resources she requested, and dismissed her. Hers was, unfortunately, not the last meeting he had scheduled for the day, though he wished it were. He had an appointment with the imperial physician, and he knew that the cantankerous old buzzard would never allow him to get away with canceling. Grudgingly, he walked to the medical wing.

It was a relatively short walk, but he was winded by the time he knocked on the office door. Finch ushered him in, ordering him to remove his cloak and have a seat. "I told you the last time you were here to abstain from all strenuous activities," he said, frowning at his bluish tinge and out of breath state. He pressed a stethoscope to his chest. "Deep breath." Tanager took a breath. Finch moved the stethoscope, repeating the process several more times, his frown growing.

As Finch put the stethoscope away, Tanager explained that he had, indeed, cut out strenuous activity. Finch bombarded him with questions, then, about his activity level, how often he had been experiencing shortness of breath, under what circumstances, and if chest pains had accompanied any of those episodes. He jotted down his answered, before taking his pulse. "It sounds as though you haven't been keeping up on the crystal treatments I prescribed for you, then," he accused.

"I have."

Finch's brow furrowed. "You've been doing everything I've ordered?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause. Tanager hated long pauses. In his experience, they never boded well.

"I'm going to run some tests…."

Tanager stopped listening. He knew that this was the end. He had no illusions. The last time he had seen the expression that now graced Finch's face was when the man had told Typhon that there was nothing he could do to save Kestrel.

Surprisingly, he was not as bothered by the prospect of death as he thought he would be. He had given the matter a great deal of thought, but had never been able to anticipate how he would face his own demise. Now as it approached, he knew. He had built an empire, and he had watched it fall. He had buried a wife, and a son. He had groomed his successor to possess the strength and will to rebuild what he had lost, while fighting to preserve the foundation on which she would construct a newer, stronger empire. Life had been a long and often painful journey, and he was ready for it to end.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"How much time does he give you?"

There was a long pause. Lark hated long pauses.

"A month. Maybe two," her grandfather finally replied.

"But…that's…."

"Longer than I expected to live," he finished for her.

"I was going to say sudden."

"We both know that isn't true. This has been a long time in coming."

It bothered her, how calmly he was taking the news that he had so little time left to live. Weren't there stages that he was supposed to go through? Shouldn't he be raging against fate, vowing to not go down without a fight? Why was she more upset than he was? It wasn't right.

"You will make an excellent Master Cyclonis," he assured her, sensing her ill ease. "I know that I've put considerable pressure on you, that I've asked you to meet expectations set far higher than I had any right to. But I've seen how much you've grown as a result, and I anticipate great things from you."

That's when it really hit her. All this time, she'd been so focused on the political ramifications of his death, that she rarely had time to dwell on how it would affect her personally. She was as prepared as she could be to assume the mantle of Master Cyclonis. Her plan was ready to be put into motion. She had done all that she could do. Now, she had to confront the fact that she was about to lose her grandfather. Of course, if her plan worked, she wasn't really losing him. But that thought didn't make her feel any better.

She struggled to maintain a cool façade. The last thing she wanted was to break down in front of him. He'd hate that. If he could remain calm through all of this, then she could, too. She took all the rising emotions, all the pain, all the fear, all the anger, and forced it back down, channeling it into ambition. The Cyclonian Empire had stood for over half a millennium, and in all that time, no other Cyclonis had managed to do what her grandfather had done. No other Cyclonis had successfully conquered the entire Atmos. But she would. She would rebuild his Empire, but where he had allowed it to wither, she would see it thrive.

She wasn't destined to be Cyclonia's destroyer, as she had feared for so long. She would be its savior.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

He faded quickly.

He must have been fighting harder than anyone could have imagined, using every trick he had learned from Lamiya, to hold himself together for so long. Once he embraced his fate, it became clear that Finch's prediction had been far too optimistic. He did not have months. He had days.

He had refused any further medical attention, going so far as to ban Finch from his room. It would do no one any good, he had said, to have him linger any longer than necessary.

Lark sat at his bedside, trying not to listen too closely to his labored breathing as he struggled to draw in enough oxygen to stay alive for just a little while longer. The mind may have accepted the inevitability of death, but the body would fight until the very end.

Finch was not the only one banned. He refused to let anyone enter his rooms, except for Lark. His pride, as strong now as it ever was, would not allow any of his subjects to view him in such a weakened state. And so they waited, together, for death to finally claim him.

They did not have a long wait. He had been dozing fitfully when he suddenly awoke, putting a hand to his chest as his breathing became more erratic. Lark sat up straighter, crystal in hand. The silver light it cast drew her grandfather's attention. "What…?" he managed to gasp out, before the shortness of breath robbed him of his voice.

"This is a transmigration crystal," she explained, holding it a few inches above his chest. "It will grant you new life. Of a sorts."

He tried to push the crystal away, but she was stronger. Wisps of something that looked like silvery smoke leached out of him as his struggling slowed and stopped. The crystal absorbed it all like a sponge, glowing brighter.

She pressed two fingers against his clammy throat, checking for a pulse, and found none. She closed his eyes, before pulling the sheet up, covering his face. Then, she turned the crystal on herself.

She shored up her mental defenses. This was the one aspect of the process that she had not had the opportunity to test. She had one chance. If anything went wrong, she could lose herself completely. She activated the crystal, shooting herself with a beam of pearlescent energy. It was like being plunged into ice water. She gasped, and icy knives seemed to stab into her lungs. But she barely felt it. What she did feel was the unsettling sensation of being pushed, as a force tried to evict her from her own body. She pushed back. Her will battled his, and she was the better prepared of the two combatants. Slowly but surely, she forced his essence into a section of her mind that she had cordoned off for it. Barriers went up, and the internal battle ended. Experimentally, she clenched and unclenched her fist, letting out a thankful breath as it obeyed.

She closed her eyes, tentatively brushing against the fenced off area of her mind. She could access memories that were not hers. She could feel emotions that were detached from her own. Ohhh, he was angry. He'd get over it.

It was as if she could view the world through two entirely different lenses. To her, the room was too cold for her liking. But viewed through this new perspective, his perspective, it seemed too warm. It was strange, and slightly disorienting. She couldn't help but laugh.

Her plan had actually worked.


	16. All Good Things in Time

The week following Tanager's death was an exhausting one for Lark. He had left detailed instructions regarding his funeral arrangements, which eliminated much of the pomp that typically surrounded such occasions. It simplified preparations, but left her open to a great deal of criticism and argument from the traditionalists.

The rest of Atmos, unsurprisingly, had celebrated the news of Tanager's passing. He, more than any Cyclonis before him, had struck fear into their hearts. He had proven that Cyclonia not only had the will, but the capacity, to defeat them all. And they had hated him for it.

Atmos' merriment had angered many Cyclonians. Imperial officials came as close as they dared to demanding that Lark go against Tanager's wishes, arguing that it was necessary to give him every honor befitting his station and accomplishments. His people had a right to pay their respects, they had said, and it sent the wrong message to the rest of Atmos if the proper rituals were not observed. But Lark, with her newfound understanding of the man, refused. He had had more than simple distaste for ostentation in mind. His arrangements served a greater purpose. _'Now is not the time for saber-rattling,'_ she could hear his voice whisper. _'Let them believe that Cyclonia has been broken. Let them languish, certain of their own superiority, until you are ready to strike.'_

In the end, she won out, of course. There were no elaborate rites, no viewing of the body, and no grand procession to show off their military might and patriotism. There was, instead, a simple memorial service for the public, and a private funeral attended by high-ranking members of the Empire.

Lark stood in a bit of a daze as her grandfather was eulogized. It felt strange, as if she were watching her own funeral. It had only been a few days since his death, and his unorthodox rebirth, but already she felt as if the two of them were merging, which she hadn't anticipated. She was still herself, and had no doubt that she would always be, but the lines were blurring.

Once everyone who wished to speak had gotten their chance, she lit the pyre, watching as the flames slowly took hold. She hardly noticed as, one by one, the others began to leave after offering final, reverential bows towards their old Master. It was only when she felt a pair of hands come to rest on her shoulders that she looked away from the fire. Dark Ace, standing behind her, offered her a sad smile when she glanced up at him. Everyone else had gone.

Together they stood, keeping vigil over the pyre, until the fire burnt down to embers.

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Dark Ace was irritated, and he didn't bother hiding it. The glares he sent Luc, the new governor of Terra Squall, should have been enough to silence him. But the man seemed oblivious as he continued to dig a hole for himself.

" – don't agree. I think it was a bad idea to let Zephyr go without a fight! I know it wasn't your call, before. But now that it is…"

Dark Ace shook his head as Luc continued, his voice rising. No doubt he thought it made him sound earnest and assertive. Dark Ace thought he sounded whiny, and, judging by Lark's increasingly aggravated expression, she felt the same.

Not that Dark Ace was completely unsympathetic. Terra Squall was located close to Zephyr, which left it wide open to attack, should the rest of Atmos feel the need to start trouble. It was understandable that Luc was less than pleased with that arrangement, and if Dark Ace thought that that was the sole motivation behind his argument, he would be less annoyed. But Dark Ace didn't believe that. He had stood in this very spot months ago when Tanager had announced that he had no intentions of recapturing Zephyr, and Luc had meekly accepted his decision. The real issue, here, was Lark's age. It would take time for some people to stop seeing her as a thirteen-year-old girl, and start seeing her as Master Cyclonis.

Several unorthodox decisions on her part hadn't helped matters. For some, the quiet funeral had been bad enough. Her refusing a formal coronation had been worse. Of course, a coronation wasn't required for her to rule. By right, she had become Master Cyclonis upon Tanager's death. All that was required of her were a few oaths, which she had given. But that did not satisfy some who were not a part of her inner circle.

Dark Ace, privy to her plans, understood that everything she had done so far was part of a ruse to make the rest of the world believe that Cyclonia had been humbled. But he also knew that it was a dangerous game she played. Those who were not in on the plot could potentially cause trouble, if they began to question her suitability as a leader. Equally dangerous was the assumption that the rest of Atmos would leave them alone. In all likelihood, they would. He himself had predicted as much. But there was always the chance that Atmos could surprise them, which could prove disastrous. She had a difficult job ahead of her. She had to prove herself a strong, capable leader to Cyclonia, while staying off of Atmos' radar until she was ready to strike.

Watching Luc, he found himself wondering if, perhaps, she was simply too young to pull it off. Why was she allowing Luc to continue? It sent the wrong message. They weren't alone. Other governors were present, awaiting audience. Everything she did, or failed to do, in these first few days would carry consequences for a long time to come.

"Are you finished, Commander?" she asked, when Luc paused to take a breath. Luc frowned, but was wise enough to give a short nod. "Good. As I said, I am in complete agreement with my predecessor on this matter. Zephyr, along with the rest of Atmos, will be dealt with in due time. Act too soon, and we risk ruining all my plans. So no, you may not invade Zephyr, and if you waste my time by mentioning it again…" She smiled unpleasantly, letting Luc's imagination fill in the blanks.

"But…"

Whatever else Luc might have said was lost as he was snatched up by a giant, red hand and slammed against the wall. Lark walked forward, the crystal from which the hand emanated held casually before her, her sadistic smile growing. Luc let out an undignified squeak as he was pressed harder against the wall with every step she took. When it seemed to Dark Ace that Luc must only be a hairsbreadth away from suffering a few cracked ribs, Lark stopped. The smile was gone, replaced with a look of cold contempt. Dark Ace couldn't help but smirk. She certainly had everyone's attention, now.

"I believe I made myself quite clear, did I not?" Luc nodded frantically, and Lark made eye contact with each of the others, as if daring them to disagree. When no one did, she continued, "I will listen to your opinions, and give full consideration to whatever advice you offer. But make no mistake; the final decision is mine. _When I give you an order, you will obey. Understood_?"

Dark Ace felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and a collective gasp rippled across the room. Another voice had spoken over the top of Lark's, one that was eerily distorted, yet recognizable to them all. For a brief moment, it looked as if Lark herself was surprised, but she recovered her composure quickly.

He looked around at all the shocked, fearful faces. Rufus, governor of the tiny terra of Taranis, made a surreptitious gesture against evil. Luc, still plastered to the wall, whimpered. He did not understand what had just happened, but there was one thing that he did know. Word of the strange occurrence would spread, and as it spread, her reputation would grow. He felt his earlier apprehension fade away. Soon enough, everybody who was anybody in the Empire would know that the new Master was not to be reckoned with lightly. He smiled. Fear could be a powerful tool.

"Understood?" she repeated, her voice once again her own. Everyone hurriedly assured her that they did. The red glow around the crystal vanished, and the hand disappeared, dropping Luc to the ground. No one moved to help him as he pushed himself up onto wobbly legs. He bowed shakily to Lark, promising to leave Zephyr alone, and backed out of the room, refusing to meet anyone's eyes as he went.

"Rufus, I believe you were next," Lark said once he was gone, in a tone so light it was as if the last few minutes never happened.

Rufus shivered and stepped forward, clutching a sheaf of papers to his chest. "I h-have the latest projections regarding the reopening of Taranis' furnace crystal mines, Master, and they're more optimistic than we previously anticipated…."

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

As the door shut behind the last governor, Lark leaned against the back of her throne with a sigh. Her head throbbed, had been throbbing ever since she fought down her grandfather's influence, earlier. She had not been prepared for that. Had not even anticipated that such a thing could happen.

She replayed the event in her mind. She remembered being angry that one of her subjects would continue to argue with her even after she had made her wishes clear, and in front of so many others, no less. She had had no choice, really, but to put him back in his place. But it was not just she who had been angry; her grandfather had, as well. Their emotions, in that moment, were perfectly harmonized. And when she had spoken, he somehow managed to speak with her. Caught off guard, she had immediately suppressed him.

But then she had seen the fear and uncertainty in everyone's eyes, noticed how they treated her with greater respect than they had before, and she began questioning her decision to fight him. This, she decided, was merely another way that she could use him to her advantage. She was, after all, the one in control. As long as he behaved himself, she did not need to fight him. If he wanted to speak through her, she would allow it, so long as it continued to benefit her. She laughed quietly to herself.

"Master?"

She looked over at Dark Ace, who was watching her with a quirked eyebrow. She hadn't remembered that he was still there.

"I have been brainstorming ways to undermine our enemies while we rebuild," she told him. "To do that, I'll need agents spread throughout the Atmos."

"Undercover Talons?" he asked, sounding interested.

She shook her head. "I'd prefer people who are already in positions of power and influence. Ones who the people of Atmos trust."

"It won't be easy finding people who are willing to betray their home terras."

"No? I think it will be easier than you imagine. Everybody has a price," she reasoned. He smiled at her cynicism.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes. Barring a few rare exceptions."

His smile widened at the pointed look she gave him as she spoke.

"I can think of a few people who may be persuaded to join our cause," he offered.

"I think it's time you paid those people a visit."

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Dark Ace scoffed as he listened to the Red Eagles complain about their current mission. Things had been quiet on Atmosia, so they had been hired to escort a shipment of crystals to Terra Tranqua, whose merchant ships had been raided several times in recent weeks by the Raptors. They were on their way to meet the shipment, now. It was a waste of their time and talents, according to their young Sky Knight, who predicted that they would see neither hide nor scale of a single Raptor.

Even had Dark Ace not been following them, he would have known their story. They were being loud enough for every patron in The Wayside Café to overhear their plight, whether they wanted to or not. Seated at the bar, he turned so that he could look over at their booth. The Sky Knight seemed to sense that he was being watched, because he looked up. Dark Ace met his gaze with a smirk, which caused the other man to scowl. Good. He had his attention. Turning back, he paid for his meal and stood, heading for the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Sky Knight stand and follow.

Ducking around the corner, he leaned against the side of the building, arms crosses casually over his chest, waiting. "Looking for someone?" he asked, when the Sky Knight walked right by. The other man spun around, weapon drawn.

"You. I know who you are," the Sky Knight told him.

"I'm not here to fight you, Carver," Dark Ace replied, holding up his hands. He was unarmed, and out of uniform. A calculated move meant to make him seem like less of a threat.

He subdued a smile as Carver stood a little straighter, obviously not expecting Dark Ace to know his name, and pleased to have been proven wrong. He knew of him by reputation only, but he had dealt with his type, before. Cocky, more concerned with personal glory than protecting Atmosia, he'd be easy to exploit.

"Why are you here, then?" Carver asked.

Dark Ace laughed, "I was trying to enjoy a meal in peace. Cyclonian money is as good as anyone else's, here."

The glowing blade moved closer to his throat. "I don't believe you."

"No?" Dark Ace affected disappointment. "How about this, then? I'm here to convince you to serve Master Cyclonis," he said bluntly.

"I'd rather eat dirt," Carver sneered, raising his blade, ready to strike.

"That can be arranged," Dark Ace said, sidestepping the blow and grabbing Carver's wrist. Smashing his arm against the side of the café to disarm him, he twisted his arm behind his back and forced him to the ground, holding him down with a knee driven into the small of his back.

Carver struggled uselessly, "My squad will come looking for me soon!"

"Then we better hurry," Dark Ace replied calmly. "Master Cyclonis is willing to offer you wealth and glory beyond measure."

"Cyclonia has fallen," Carver said through grit teeth. "Cyclonis can't offer me a thing!"

"Oh, but she can. Cyclonia will rise again, sooner than you think. Your choice is simple. You can defy us, and spend the rest of your life escorting ships back and forth between terras until Cyclonis takes back what is rightfully hers and you are thrown into a dark cell, along with all the other Sky Knight scum. Or you can join us, and rule Terra Atmosia when that glorious day comes."

Carver's struggles slowed.

"Listening now, are you? It gets better. We aren't expecting you to become a Talon. We want you to remain a Sky Knight. Be the Master's eyes and ears on Atmosia. That's all we ask, for now. When Cyclonis makes her move is when you need to make your choice. If you decide that you'd rather take your chances as a Sky Knight, then the world need never know about our little conversation here, today. If, however, you realize that your faith in the Sky Knight Council has been misplaced, then all you have to do is one or two small favors for Cyclonis, and your future is assured. It's a win-win situation."

Dark Ace grinned as Carver stopped struggling. Pulling him to his feet, he asked, "So, do we have a deal?"

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Master Cyclonis smiled as she listened to Dark Ace's report. She sketched as she listened, lounging comfortably upon her throne. Her grandfather's disapproval buzzed dimly in the back of her mind. Not once had he sat so casually upon the throne of his ancestors. She smirked. If it was anyone besides Dark Ace who stood before her, she might agree that her behavior was dangerously informal. But it wasn't, and so she studiously ignored the voice.

When Dark Ace had finished telling her of the various successes and failures of his mission, he asked, "What are you working on, Master?"

Cyclonis looked down at the rough, half-finished drawing, all sketchy lines and scribbled notes. It didn't look like much on paper, but she could see it clearly in her mind's eye. A thing of awesome beauty and devastation, a machine that could generate massive storms, with which she would dominate the Atmos. There would be no need to waste precious resources and Talons on a drawn out war. With the push of a button, she could reclaim her Empire in a matter of hours.

"That, Dark Ace, will be revealed in due time."

It wasn't that she did not trust him. On the contrary, there was no one that she trusted more. But neither her drawing, nor her telling, could fully do the Storm Engine justice. It was something that had to be seen to fully appreciate. Dark Ace inclined his head in understanding, and she smiled. That trust ran both ways.

She stood, walking over to the window, and he followed. Looking out over the harsh Cyclonian landscape, she felt the weight of responsibility pushing down on her more strongly than ever before. She must protect Cyclonia, and expand the Empire. It was what she had been born to do. Once everything was under her control, nothing could ever threaten their safety and stability, again. Atmos would be united. Whole. Strong. Like it was meant to be.

It was only a matter of time.

-- The End --

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Author's Note –

Well, everyone, we've come to the end of this particular journey. I wanted to thank everyone who read, who reviewed, who put this story on alert, or in their favorites. It means a lot to me that you all have stuck it out to the end. It took me longer to get this finished than I anticipated. You all have been very patient, and for that, I thank you.


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